Apology to Offthemark.com

Earlier today in my Lecture Capture Technology post I linked to a cartoon from Offthemark.com. I am careful to reference anything I post and when I want to use a graphic that already exists on the web I generally link to it (rather than make a copy and upload as my own). Hence my usual "Image link to..." reference. Most of the graphics I use are found through Google Image search and I figured it was OK to simply link to them. As you can see, Offthemark.com clearly do not agree with this.

Cartoon by Dave Walker.
Find more cartoons you can freely re-use
on your blog at We Blog Cartoons. 

The cartoon can be accessed here  - it is cartoon # 2008-02-01. This evening the message above showed up instead of the graphic which I used without permission. I have now removed the graphic from my previous post.

So - an unreserved apology to Offthemark.com (and to Mark Parisi, the author of the cartoon) for nicking their cartoon. I'll have to stick to WeBlogCartoons where Dave Walker does allow bloggers to use his cartoons for free - as long as you reference where you got them from.

All of this begs the question - is linking to something the same as stealing? If I stand in the street and point to a picture on a wall - have I stolen it? Is pointing to (not copying) a resource on the web through a hyperlink a breach of copyright and Intellectual Property? If I had taken the care to read the very simple message at the bottom of Mark Parisi's cartoon:

Permission required for use.

I would not be guilty of stealing his work. My learning from this is to first of all apologize when I get something wrong, and secondly to take any corrective action I can to minimize the damage. I'll be more careful in future.