Hotlinking.. to my pictures.

[Sandi]

I don't mind others liking my site so much that they link to it, I
have let some school and other sites post my pictures, and usually
they will link to it. Recently I became aware of "hotlinking" (I guess
it was never a concern of mine,, until people actually started
visiting my site.)
I recently found a couple of pages that had hotlinked to some pictures
of mine, and the way they were presented on the pages gave no
indication of who the pictures belong too.
Really doesn't bother me, except they didn't even bother to store the
pictures in their own web space. I found one that is actually a pretty
major site, that brags of "stolen pictures" so I found a way to deal
with it.
I was wondering if this is acceptable in the circle of the internet. I
did not use porn or anything bad, but rather replaced the original
pictures with an "offer" to see the picture by visiting the site where
it is located.
Is there anything wrong with this?
My site is strictly non commercial, it is an information and picture
site of Arizona.
This is one page that hotlinked to my site, if you scroll down to the
picture that has been reversed, flipped and only half there... with a
message and the word "MONSOON" under it, that is the one that is
actually on my site, but they have on their site (this was even masked
by a fake URL if you try to save the picture from their site, the only
way I figured it out was by viewing their "source" and reading the
script).
I would like opinion on if what I did was okay....Here is the link
http://padacia.blogspot.com/
The true link for the site the picture is on is
http://arizonainformation.freeservers.com/mesapic.html
Sandi

 

[rf]

Protecting images has long been the peril of many webmasters. If you find a
good solution to it, tell us. Otherwise, what your doing is fine, and
sending an email to the other webmasters would hurt (it's illegal if they
haven't given you credit).

Nope. It's illegal even if they do give the OP credit. What they need is the
OP's explicit *permission*, in writing, assuming said OP actually owns the
copyright to the image in the first place. If the latter is not the case
then the OP is in breach of copyright as well.

Cheers
Richard.

 

[brucie]

I recently found a couple of pages that had hotlinked to some pictures
of mine, and the way they were presented on the pages gave no
indication of who the pictures belong too.
Really doesn't bother me,

it doesn't bother you that you're paying the bandwidth costs for other
people to present your content on their site?

I found a way to deal with it. I was wondering if this is acceptable in the
circle of the internet. I did not use porn or anything bad, but rather
replaced the original pictures with an "offer" to see the picture by
visiting the site where it is located. Is there anything wrong with this?

no, they were stealing from you. there may also be copyright issues.

I would like opinion on if what I did was okay....

its fine. its your content, your site, you can do what you want but
you didn't do enough. i would have complained to the offending sites
host and had them shut down. i would also have had a lawyer contact
them with a demand of payment for renting my images and bandwidth
costs. if the site was making money such as banner adds i would
increase the amount. etc etc.

 

[Nick Howes]

Protecting images has long been the peril of many webmasters. If you find a
good solution to it, tell us. Otherwise, what your doing is fine, and
sending an email to the other webmasters would hurt (it's illegal if they
haven't given you credit).

Would it be possible for a webserver log to record the location of a page an
image was loaded from? I don't know much about logs so I don't know if it's
possible.

 

[brucie]

Would it be possible for a webserver log to record the location of a page an
image was loaded from? I don't know much about logs so I don't know if it's
possible.

yes but i've noticed a lot of log analyzers have been dumbed down or
only show the "top 10" so they may not show the requests.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_log_common.html

 

[Fliiber Gibbet]

I don't mind others liking my site so much that they link to it, I
have let some school and other sites post my pictures, and usually
they will link to it. Recently I became aware of "hotlinking" (I guess
it was never a concern of mine,, until people actually started
visiting my site.)
I recently found a couple of pages that had hotlinked to some pictures
of mine, and the way they were presented on the pages gave no
indication of who the pictures belong too.
Really doesn't bother me, except they didn't even bother to store the
pictures in their own web space. I found one that is actually a pretty
major site, that brags of "stolen pictures" so I found a way to deal
with it.
I was wondering if this is acceptable in the circle of the internet. I
did not use porn or anything bad, but rather replaced the original
pictures with an "offer" to see the picture by visiting the site where
it is located.
Is there anything wrong with this?
My site is strictly non commercial, it is an information and picture
site of Arizona.
This is one page that hotlinked to my site, if you scroll down to the
picture that has been reversed, flipped and only half there... with a
message and the word "MONSOON" under it, that is the one that is
actually on my site, but they have on their site (this was even masked
by a fake URL if you try to save the picture from their site, the only
way I figured it out was by viewing their "source" and reading the
script).
I would like opinion on if what I did was okay....Here is the link
http://padacia.blogspot.com/
The true link for the site the picture is on is
http://arizonainformation.freeservers.com/mesapic.html
Sandi

If you have control over the configuration of the Webserver, Apache
Mod_rewrite will do the job...

http://faq.solutionscripts.com/misc/hot_linking.html

 

[Sandi]

All I see is a bunch of big messages warning about the dangers of
hotlinking. Is this what you see too?

No,, if you ment you clicked on the links and that is what you saw...
The first link it the "Blogspot" site, which had my picture
"hotlinked" from it. It actually had someone elses name by it... and
the second link it the page that the picture was from.. until
yesterday when I changed its name and put the previous name on the
picture that is still on blogspot. Does that make sense???

I don't know if I am explaining things right...
Sandi