I want to keep the option of hotlinking open, but occasionally while browsing through logs, I’ll encounter a blatant bandwidth thief.
I’ll set up .htaccess to redirect hotlinking requests to this historical image, bookmark, and watch the fun.
I got the feeling from Yosemite, that it was both of these things: being charged for hotlinked bandwidth, and not receiving credit for the art work?
There’s plenty of unethical behavior there. Consider the following example:
You are the proud owner of no-charge photo booth. You offer it as a service to the public, because, hey, you’re just a really nice guy. Some people come to your photo booth and take a picture or two. Some people take a lot of pictures. But you don’t mind. After all, that’s what Galt’s Free Photo Booth is all about.
Then, one day, I decide that I want to open a free photography mega-site. I’ll give away free film and free cameras, and I’ll also have a free photo booth, just like you. However, all my free stuff costs me quite a bit to maintain, so I decide to cut some corners. I run a power cable from my photo booth to your outlet, as well as running a small conveyor belt from my photo booth to yours.
Now, every time someone uses my photo booth to take a picture, it uses your electricity to do so. Also, the conveyor belt automatically takes some of your raw materials (blank paper, ink, etc) from your booth and delivers them to mine, so that I don’t have to buy my own supplies.
According to you, there would be nothing at all unethical about my behavior. In fact, calling me a thief would be, as you phrased it, “fucking stupid and makes you sound like you don’t understand the technology”.
I guess that my next big business plan will be to take all of the free samples from the grocery stores around the city and give out free full-course meals composed of those samples. Nothing ethically wrong there, either, is there?
Would you care to re-assess your position on bandwidth thieves now?
No thanks. Your “stolen electricity” example involves trespassing, and your “free grocery store samples” example doesn’t even sound like a problem. If the store is willing to give me enough free samples to run a business on, where’s the problem? The obvious choice is for them to realize their policy is too lenient and come up with a way to limit it, not start calling me a thief.
Regarding everyone jumping on me saying the graphics were “free for the taking”, I’m referring to them being viewed by anyone who wants to, not actually having your work passed off as being owned by someone else. Sorry my wording wasn’t more precise. Anyone claiming your pictures are theirs is an asshole.
The argument that something is theft because it costs you money is ridiculous in the context of a web site. You put the fucking content on a website, and people can view it to their heart’s content. All the “thieves’” web pages are doing is telling someone’s browser to go get a file that’s freely downloadable, and if you don’t like it, it’s your job to enforce restrictions on downloading it, not complain that people are downloading your freely-downloadable file. The file is freely available simply by virtue of your web server giving it up when asked for it. Each time someone views the “theif’s” web page, the viewer’s browser says to your web server, “hey, can I have this file?” and your web server says, “yes, here you go.” (and let’s not even get into the philosophical discussion of who is actually using the bandwidth, because it’s not the “thief”, it’s the viewer).
Let’s say you have a picture: http://yourserver.com/picture.jpg. Now let’s say you have a web page that references that picture: http://yourserver.com/page.html. Your web page can have copyright notices and disclaimers up the wazoo, but there’s still nothing stopping anyone from just typing http://yourserver.com/picture.jpg in their browser and never seeing your stern legal warnings. The picture is not part of the page, it’s just referred to by the page, and putting the picture on a web server with permissions that allow it to be downloaded by anyone is your way of saying “this can be downloaded by anyone”. It’s the way the web works, and I’m sorry if that’s inconvenient. Frankly, if you don’t get this, you shouldn’t be running a web site.
If I were to walk down the street handing out cards with the direct URLs to your pictures on it, would I be a “bandwidth thief”? If I ask you to look at this picture am I a thief?
Well, galt, seems like you don’t really have a problem with Mme. yosemite; she’s simply “enforcing restrictions on downloading” her files to ensure that her bandwidth is conserved. I guess the question is one of semantics then - because it seems by your explanation that she’s not doing anything you’d disapprove of. Am I correct? Is your objection simply to the use of the term ‘thief’, rather than her approach in protecting her work and bandwidth?
Yes. See my earlier post where I said, “for what it’s worth, I’m just giving you a hard time about your extreme terminology.”
The “extreme terminology” is widely used among webmasters. The terms “leech” (as in “leeching bandwidth”) are also commonly used. They are definitely considered unethical at the very least. You’d be hard-pressed to find a webmaster who would feel that the words “leech,” “thief,” and “parasite” are too harsh.
galt seems to have a softer, gentler viewpoint towards people swiping graphics and leeching bandwidth. He suggests in his first post here that I let some of my leechers off the hook and not block them from displaying my graphic on their page.
No, I do not feel any need to offer “concessions” towards people these people. If they really thought my works were “neat,” they’d write me and ask me if they can upload them to their own server and then then give me credit for being the artist/photographer. Instead, they leech the image without getting permission. The hell with them. I cannot believe that “unethical,” at the very least, is an appropriate description of what they are doing. But apparently galt feels that it isn’t even that. :rolleyes:
Not at all. Your free photo booth is open to all. You just neglected to take any precautions against people using your outlets.
The problem is that it’s implicitly understood that they don’t want a single person taking all of the “free” samples, and just because they haven’t caught on yet and taken action to stop you doesn’t make the act any less unethical. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should do it.
It’s kind of like the penny tray you often see next to the register in an convenience store. If you have extra change you can drop in in the tray, and if you need a penny or two to make your transaction come out even, you can take them from the tray. If you ask the cashier, “Can I have a penny”, they’ll say yes (just like the web server). But if you dump half the contents of the tray into your pocket so that you can redistribute the funds among your friends, then you’re an asshole.
You sound very much like one of those pricks who would follow the letter of the law while ignoring its spirit. Yes, you can link directly to the image. Yes, you can set up your own web page to waste someone else’s bandwidth. But if you do, you’re a bandwidth thief / leech / asshole.
I would just like to confess now, that when I was new to the internet, I did a lot of hotlinking, not knowing any better. I now feel REALLY bad.
galt, you’re a fucking tool. There’s absolutely no need to hotlink graphics, what with all the free storage sites out there for pictures, (for icons on a message board, for example), and what not.
Yes, yosemite puts her work up on her website for people to view. However, she PAYS for this. Other people aren’t paying for the storage and bandwidth usage-they’re simply using her’s without her permission.
That’s called theft. They’re not stealing the image, per se, but the bandwidth, that SHE paid for, to use her SITE. Not for someone else to take her stuff and put it on THEIR site, and use her bandwidth.
Another interesting bandwidth left legend-keep in mind, I heard this a while ago, it may or may not be true:
Apparently, some guy once had a photo on his website, that was connected with a major newstory. So, the big news sites (CNN, ABC, MSNBC, etc) used his picture, but instead of downloading it, they all just linked it from his site.
He replaced it with goatsecx. Imagine going to CNN one day and instead of a picture from say, the Republican National Convention, you see a big gaping rectum. Hehehehe… 
So if I write some software and put it up on my site for download, and someone else puts a link on their site that says, “click here to download” and doesn’t make it clear that it’s not from their site, that’s bandwidth theft?
Somehow I just don’t see getting so worked up about this. I think it’s perfectly fair to call it rude and obnoxious if it’s done in a way that impacts you (although it’s still up to you to fix the problem), but if it’s a link from someone’s site that gets three hits a day, he’s not exactly “taking all the free samples” or being an asshole. Follow the spirit of the rule, not the letter.
Well, if they put a link to your website, no. But if they put a direct link to that file, in question, on their website, then yes, that would be bandwidth theft.
Even if they say it’s not from their site. It’s not about the credit-it’s about slowing down your own site. Some places will SHUT DOWN WEBSITES that go over their bandwidth limit.
It depends, I suppose. If you want as many people to see and use your software (and I assume your software has identification in it, registration information, etc.), then I don’t think you’d care who downloads it—you’re getting it spread out there, and that was your goal. With other developers of software, it very well might be a big problem for them. They want to get some sort of registration information, they want to inform the user of some new issues, or whatever. Your linking directly to the software interferes with that.
However, when someone uses a picture I took of Yosemite National Park, for instance, for their frickin’ blog, how does that do anything for me? Why should I pay for that? And moreover, why should my content “prettify” their damned blog? Let them give me credit, at the very least. As it is, I get nothing out of the deal—my photo is used in an anonymous manner, and often is made to appear as if the person displaying owns the photo. I’ll never forget the idiot who linked to one of my drawings, but claimed that their “very talented” cousin did it. What the hell? (I had fun replacing that graphic with something embarrassing. ;))
You speak for yourself only. Obviously a multitude of webmasters think it is a big deal.
Of course it’s up to me to “fix the problem,” because people obviously cannot be trusted to respect other people’s (intellectual) property or resources. It’s also up to me to lock the doors of my car—not because there’s nothing wrong with stealing a car, but because people are assholes and will steal, so we all have to protect ourselves from that.
Yes he is being an asshole. He does not know how many hits he’s going to get. He also doesn’t know whether or not I, the original artist, wants my graphic shown on his shitty page. Some sites that hotlink to my work have agendas or messages that are offensive to me. There’s no way I would allow my work to be displayed (on my dime) in such a way.
These people ignore (or never look) to see what my “terms of use” are for the graphics, they just take them without a second thought. That’s being an asshole.
“But I was just leeching a little bit! That doesn’t count!” Screw them.
Yes, they do. I’m in the process of porting several other sites over to new hosts (ones that allow hotlink protection, among other things) and that’s one of the things they mentinon in their TOS. I made sure to get a hosting plan that had plenty of extra bandwidth, but even so, I am not about to donate any of that to hotlinkers.
The image was listed as a public domain image with a disclaimer to say that it was ok for non-commercial use on the net. I don’t know if sabotaging someone else’s auction is considered non-commercial, but we certainly didn’t use it to aid the sale.
Besides, we weren’t protesting the use of the image, merely the bandwidth theft.
Err, let me try that again. This
came out wrong.
That wouldn’t justify stealing someone else’s image. It was meant as a clarification in response to the comment about being hypocritical for protesting someone violating our copyright by violating someone else’s copyright. I should have said our only objection was to the hotlinking, not to the image being used, and in all likelyhood we would have given permission for the guy to use that photo if he’d contacted us, asked permission and hosted it himself.
Giving it more thought, I can’t be sure that the person offering the graphic for use was the actual copyright holder but at the time we took it at face value, and have nothing to suggest either way that the site we got it from didn’t have the authority to offer it for free use.
Mr Cazzle encountered another auction tonight that was using one of his images, but it wasn’t hotlinked. He sent the guy a message asking if he broke into our house to take the photo.
Pretending that they aren’t thieves and that the description is exaggerating things any makes you sound like a fucking moron who doesn’t understand the technology or the standard terms used to describe it.
As a former webmaster, I want to side on galt’s perpsective, and against the “web boyz” club that is supposedly defining the ethics and culture of the web.
Simply, if you are allowing a path to the files on your server via http protocol, then anything there is completely, legally, ethically, and morally fair game for anyone else to link to, reference, download, or internal link to, with the assumption that they are not claiming that work for their own (i.e. copyright issues). Any webmaster that does not understand this has no business running a website, and if I was a manager/company with a webmaster with this behavior they would be replaced immediately. This is akin to walking down a public street naked, and then angrily yelling at everyone who looks at you.
It is trivial to restrict data on your servers to prevent this. Whether it is by referrer restrictions, bandwidth filters, user authentications, whatever. Put some damn clothes on if you don’t want people looking at your naked ass in public.
To the person apologizing for having done this on personal webpages before, don’t apologize, you did nothing at all wrong. If someone doesn’t want you to reference the data on their page, they have every resource and ability to do so.
Well, first of all, they’re not attempting to define or enforce anything. It’s called netiquette, and it evolved as a “gentlemen’s understanding.”
Second of all, if it’s “fair game” for someone to hotlink into their servers, then it’s equally “fair game” to replace those images with whatever they damn well please when the leeched bandwidth becomes a problem.
Thirdly, it’s astounding to me, a former and current webmaster, that anyone who has ever had to pay for bandwith cannot comprehend the ethical and moral objection to hotlinking. It’s OK if you don’t feel that way yourself, if you’re the benevolent type. But to make an objection to webmasters who are bothered by seeing their resources spent to serve neither themselves nor their audience, by someone who doesn’t ask permision, is insensitive and/or ignorant at the least…
And at the worst, it would make one suspect you are a leecher yourself.
Chances are, the truth is somewhere in between.
My neighbour has left their garden furniture out, and it’s trivial for me to hop over the fence to have a barbecue; presumably this is okay, since everything they don’t specifically prohibit me from doing I am ethically permitted to do. Some nights they don’t even lock their back door; then I walk in and drink the beer in their fridge. They have every resource to lock me out, though, so I feel quite justified in doing so.
Arse, frankly. I may be silly not to lock up my bike, but the shithead who nicks it is still a shithead.
We are not talking ethics only here, we’re talking money, and resources. Laying bricks is not the only thing that qualifies as ‘work’, when someone steals my photos they have stolen my time, my work and my money (I take pictures of food, food cost money) and even more money when they steal my bandwith. I sell pictures, when somebody uses my pictures without paying they are stealing from me.
:wally
It’s hard to fathom that some here are trying to defend the practice of hotlinking. It seems to be so universally reviled amongst webmasters, and seems to be so obviously rude and selfish. I just can’t quite wrap my head around the concept that somehow it’s supposed to be morally and ethically “okay.”
Boggles the mind.