Pictures: Uploading and Remote Linking

[Angel]

There have been questions and arguments and discussions over whether or not remotely linking to an image is okay as opposed to yanking them from the website and uploading it, so I'm copying over and slightly editing a part of my post from another thread.


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I owned a website, on which I used to place pictures of my paintings, drawings, the few photographs I took and some digital art.

I had to shut it down because of people directly linking to the files on my website. I paid for a fixed amount of bandwidth each month, and if I went over, I was charged for it.

Someone on here stated that the bandwidth usage from people remotely linking was a mere blip, but that is not always true. My account package included double what my current website is, and each month I was going more then three times over it, and having to pay for it.

The truth is that if you remotely link from a website, your link itself will be a very tiny blip, but combine that with all of the other people who could be doing the very same thing and it adds up. And only the webmaster will know exactly how high it does.

I eventually sold the domain, bought a new one and changed over to webdesign and graphics, and I used to have tons of freebies that I made for people to take and upload onto their own server, and yet again people insisted on remotely linking to the images, and again I was paying more and more each month.

When I found places it was happening, webhosts were contacted, and accounts were terminated.

I don't do that anymore. It's not worth it.


Be aware that most webmasters nowadays who don't want you to remotely link to their images will say so on their website. They say it for a reason. I did, and people still did it.

That said, you'd be surprised at the number of webmasters who will actually say yes if you do ask them if you can remotely link, this way they can keep track of it. I've asked quite a few and have rarely gotten a no.

This is what I do now, for certain people.

 

[Spinaroonie]

Be aware that most webmasters nowadays who don't want you to remotely link to their images will say so on their website. They say it for a reason. I did, and people still did it.

I don't think that's nessecarily true. Many webmasters don't want you to do it, but where do you mention it? You don't want to have to clutter up your webpage because of that.

Anyways, image linking is how you get caught. If you're going to post inline copyrighted images at least do it on your own hosting. webpage. There are many places that will host your images for free. Just look around.

So either make your own images like so:

Or get your own hosting.

 

[The Heretic]

If you have a decent host, there is a setting on the server (in the htaccess file IIRC) that disallows any hotlinking. IIRC, it is set by IP address or more likely domain. That is why some hotlinks here do not work; their website is setup to prevent that.

I am not saying that just because someone doesn't (or can't) prevent hotlinking from their website, that they are then explicitly or implicitly condoning hotlinking of their content - just that they probably don't know two things:

1) That there are people hotlinking - not all hosts provide these kind of stats.

2) That they can prevent this (it may also be that they can't - it may depend on whether their hosting server is Linux or Windoze).

 

[Angel]

Some people don't disallow hotlinking on their entire site because they allow it in certain cases.

Like me. I hotlink things from my own website, and allow a few people to do so as well. I can keep track of how much bandwidth I'm using when I know who is hotlinking what.


Spin, it is very true on many, many sites that make free graphics and things like that to 'clutter' up their webpages with that statement. Know why? People stealing bandwidth make it necessary. Once you get burned and screwed over, you end up forced to make people viewing your site aware that you don't allow it, and will not tolerate it.

http://greyday.org/

 

[The Heretic]

Some people don't disallow hotlinking on their entire site because they allow it in certain cases.

I believe you can have different htaccess files for each folder/directory to enable that possibility.

 

[Problem Child]

I'm still not clear on what's "allowed" and what's not.

I got an earful from Spin the other night because I was hotlinking pics. Spin said the owner of the site would get pissed off about it so I stopped.

Yet KM was telling that person who started the anime thread last night that downloading was wrong because if you download pics onto your computer then link to them, they are than hosted by lit and the original authors do not get credit.

So now I don't know what's legal or ethical or anything. I'm so confused. I love my google image search.

 

[Spinaroonie]

PC, the best way to do it, is to get your own webspace and link to it yourself. That way if you DO link to a copyrighted image then the odds of you getting caught are miniscule.

Odds are your ISP is giving you some webspace, it shouldn't be too hard to use. If not, then netscape gives it out, so do a bunch of other places.

 

[glamorilla]

a couple of months ago i pmmd laurel worried the pictures i was posting were causing the problems.

she told me no and to proceed with myself as usual.

she also knows if any problems come out of it to immediately just delete the whole thread without any insult to me whatsoever.

most of the stuff i post is okay~i'm supposed to be discreet with my images and believe it the stuff i'm not allowed to post is very well guarded (and they are some very hot,hot pictures) and will only show up as a red x and i have friends who *would* be upset with me for sharing,some don't care~mostly i'm just trying to have a little fun here becouse the people in my real life are just way to high maintenance and i like getting away from that during the day.

by my standards here the rules are free speech and whatever laurel wants~

nobody else.

 

[The Heretic]

PC, the best way to do it, is to get your own webspace and link to it yourself. That way if you DO link to a copyrighted image then the odds of you getting caught are miniscule.

Odds are your ISP is giving you some webspace, it shouldn't be too hard to use. If not, then netscape gives it out, so do a bunch of other places.

I wouldn't use the webspace my ISP gives me for hotlinking images here - I would use other web space that could so easily be traced back to my personal info. Not because I would want to avoid the owner of the image coming back at me, but rather to avoid people like Kid Rock, etc., getting personal ID info.

There are free website hosts out there that allow hotlinking if it isn't excessive (if you use it only for storing files and hotlinking, you will probably be booted) and you have an active website that people actually visit.