It explains a lot that you continue to try to cloud the issue by thinking that it’s this simple. But you must know that it is not.
“Permissions” is just a term to describe allowing access to certain files. It can be compared to locking something, or blocking someone. To block hotlinking is similar to locking your door. The door comes with a lock. You can choose to set the lock, or not. Same with blocking hotlinking. You choose to either have that block on, or off. Just like the lock on your door.
But instead of recognizing this, you obsess on the use of the term “permissions,” and try to pretend that the use of that term (in this context only) makes it extra-special in some way, and that it means that people can take whatever they can get away with, and it’s all morally okay.
Look. When someone blocks hotlinking, it’s akin to locking your door, or locking that outlet. To pretend otherwise is silly. You are grasping at a technicality (the use of the term “permissions”) and setting your whole premise on that. But it won’t wash. It doesn’t stand up to real-word scrutiny. A lot of non-techies understand this concept, because it really isn’t that complicated. And, I might add, a lot of non-techies understand that if they don’t own it and they aren’t footing the bill for it, they PROBABLY DON’T HAVE PERMISSION TO USE IT. Trying to throw up some technicality and the use of “permissions” isn’t going to change that.
<Directory “C:/PicsIWantToProtect”>
<FilesMatch “.(gif|jpg)”>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from env=local_ref
</FilesMatch>
</Directory>
There are many other ways it can be done from a PHP and/or ASP end as well, but I’m not going to teach this on this message board.
Using the server settings is not only nothing new it’s something everyone should be doing be default to stop hotlinking. Replacing the graphic is cool and all but it’s largely unnecessary.
Here’s another tip - use the IP bans. Ban whole countries if you have to; I assure you it can be done. I ban about 25% of the entire available address space and am quite happy doing so.
<Directory “C:/PicsIWantToProtect”>
<FilesMatch “.(gif|jpg)”>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from env=local_ref
</FilesMatch>
</Directory>
<Directory “C:/MorePicsIWantToProtect”>
<FilesMatch “.(gif|jpg)”>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from env=local_ref
</FilesMatch>
</Directory>
<Directory “C:/Pics/California/Sacramento/Squirrels/Red”>
<FilesMatch “.(gif|jpg)”>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from env=local_ref
</FilesMatch>
</Directory>
<Directory “C:/Cooking/CaliforniaContemp/WalnutDressing”>
<FilesMatch “.(gif|jpg)”>
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from env=local_ref
</FilesMatch>
</Directory>
In each case the protection will apply to the directory named and all below it. This is for Apache 1.3.x. I assume someone else can provide a similar example for whatever server you’re using.
(for the record, my (now lifted) ban was not due to the opinions expressed in this thread. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to discuss it or not, so I’ll just let it drop.)
However much I love the concept of free enterprise and private property and copyright, I refuse to concede that you can steal light photons. And neither will I call people who share music files on the internet the same thing I’d call a bunch of robbers and murderers on the high seas. I’m not going to call a wrong that was committed something that it isn’t just to make it seem worse than it actually is.
Sneaking into a movie theater is trespassing, pure and simple. Unless you use the restroom or it’s the summer and the theater is using air condition (in which case the added exothermic heat generated by the trespasser makes the cost of cooler the theater ever so slightly more, which causes a tangible loss that I could be intellectually comfortable with calling it stealing)
I am a co-webmaster of a site that has hundreds of pictures over 100kb in filesize. We’ve exceeded our data transfer allowance a few times. We’re glad for our site’s popularity of course, but it’s still annoying when I find that another site posted several of our large pictures, scrolling across the webpage in gaudy marquees :eek:, which use up a couple hundred kb of data transfer every single time that leecher’s site is loaded.
It’s one thing to go over on your data transfer (okay, “bandwidth”) as a result of visitors’ interest in your website, but when a person visits the leecher’s site and enjoys seeing those picture, they will probably never even see the original site they came from, let alone see all the other sections of our site that we worked many hours on.
My co-webmaster pays for our webhosting every month because we have fun maintaining the site. Of course we want the site to be recognized. If our limited data transfer is going to get used up, it should at least be a result of people enjoying our site.
The problem with the people who pretend that intellectual property theft isn’t really theft is that they are stupidly focusing on the non-physical aspects at work. The question of photons has nothiing to do with anything being discussed. It’s a straw man argument. The photons aren’t what you are paying for, so when you steal it’s not that you are stealing photons. You are stealing a service that other people have to pay for.
Your line of argument is based out of a severely archaic way of thinking. You would have us believe that it’s not theft unless the thing stolen has some physical form. You are centuries behind the times.
Blalron - you consider the contribution of body heat to air conditioning costs to be stealing, but you don’t consider the contribution of hotlinking to increased bandwidth costs to be stealing? Seems like an odd double standard, especially when hotlinking can cost a site owner a lot of money very rapidly - a lot of data transfer could cost a site owner hundreds of dollars for every hotlinker rather than the few cents each trespasser would add to air conditioning.
I’m not sure you understand the problem. Once again, what we are talking about here isn’t the unauthorised use of intellectual property which may not actually incur real world financial losses (which is what I believe MP3 trading and the like falls under), we are talking about linking to an image or file hosted by someone else so that they pay all the costs for data transfer instead of saving it to your own server and footing the bill whenever one of your visitors calls it up. That’s not to say that copyright violations aren’t a valid concern for some, it’s just that they aren’t the focus of the discussion here.
If some cool 13 year old named Mike steals your intellectual property - a photo of your dog Spot - and puts it on his website, the average person who doesn’t intend to sell Spot’s photo hasn’t had a financial loss from Mike’s copyright violation. However, if Mike leaves Spot’s photo on your website, but links it on his webpage, every time his site is visited, your site is charged for bandwidth usage. Depending on how many visitors Mike gets and your hosting deal, your hosting costs may increase a little or a whole lot or not at all. If you get a bundled deal with extra bandwidth that you never use then Mike’s additional usage may not make the slighest difference to you. If you run pretty close to your limit then Mike may just push you over the edge and start costing you for additional bandwidth. If you’re on a deal where they pull your website for exceeding the transfer limit then Mike may cause your website to vanish off the net. The problem is that, from Mike’s end, he can’t know if his contribution to your download limit is going to pass unnoticed and cost you nothing or if it’s going to cripple your site, get you shut down or cost you a lot of extra money. That is why it’s unethical to hotlink, especially without asking permission.
