MIND YOUR iMANNERS MR CAMERON

02-10-2006

From a dust up in the House of Commons to a brush with Creative Commons. Nick Booth on how the Conservative leader David Cameron MP has slipped upwith the launch of his new video blog.

The site www.webcameron.org.uk uses some very funky little icons, popped in their no doubt by the designers commissioned to make it so.

The trouble is those icons were made by a talented web designer based here in Brum and they're being used in breach of his copyright.

Mark James makes them freely available on his site www.famfamfam.com under what is known as aCreative Commons license. It is a widely used and respected way to protect what is written on the web and requires generosity and integrity from all those involved.

So the deal is simple: you can use the natty icons free as long as you credit the source, and in web parlance this means linking to Mark's website.

Anything else is simply rude.

Mark would like to see the credit - and told us "I expect people to occasionally overlook the issues of the Creative Commons, although I have to say I'm a little shocked that this escaped a political party".

From my point of view I want to see local creativity given its due. So Mr Cameron please remember your manners, sort out the site and then pop Mark a quick apology. You can even make it a video apology if you like.

www.podnosh.com/blog