Before the SDMB went down I posted a “show your desktop” thread, which are quite common on many message boards. I personally enjoy seeing what other’s workspaces look like, I added a link to a pic of my own that I had uploaded to Geocities, Angelfire, and Tripod. TubaDiva quickly locked the thread and rather harshly chastised me for promoting the irresponsible use of other’s servers. Personally, I had always used free homepage services as my own personal web servers. Is there anything wrong with this? Is it even technically possible to “steal” something that is free?
Agreed. Isn’t that exactly what the services are for… hosting web content? I don’t think there’s even a “taking advantage” aspect to it: they let you upload files to be accessed by others, and that’s what you’re doing.
There must be something more to it - do you have a link to the closed thread?
I agree with Mr2001. Clearly the free host your own little website places are there for you to host you own little website. What else are they there for?
There’s a difference. Linking to a page is perfectly legit as that what they are there for. You get the page and their ads. But linking directly to an image file is stealing bandwidth and is a no no. In fact I believe Geocoties is set up that is will not deliver an image unless requested by an HTML page on their own site. At least it was like that some time ago.
Linking directly to an image may be prohibited by the web host’s Terms Of Service, in which case you should link to a page that just displays the images.
In the absence of an agreement, though, I don’t think it’s “stealing” to link to an image. It’s like a grocery store selling milk for $1.00 in the hopes that you’ll buy higher-profit items wihle you’re inside - if you go inside and only buy milk, they take the loss and that’s the cost of doing business.
In a similar vein, suppose all your friends use WebWasher to block ads. If you give them a link to your GeoCities page, knowing that no ads will be served, isn’t that the same situation?
Well, I have a free site, and I have a website, although I sometimes upload pictures I plan to use and show. But the web service I use has no rules against that-it isn’t a problem.
I should have RTFM, but better late than never. I read the TOS for Angelfire and Geocities and unfortunately even if the image is on its own page posting the link on a message board constitutes ‘remote loading’ which is prohibited. On more informal message boards this practice is tolerated, but i can now see why TubaDiva locked my thread. I still think its a rather benign crime though, along the lines of jaywalking and speeding.
btw, the link to the old thread comes up invalid now; so does the one to a thread started by someone who wrote to tell me that they thought diva was out of line.
I didn’t understand this either when I read the original post way back when. I thought it was cool how one could capture a pic of their desktop & forgot how to do that. I see lots of links on homepages. Plus those Web Rings have lists of links.