Using a link to a photo ....

hobie

I provide a link to a photo, in a post in a public Forum (as part of a technical question) .....

The site in question/photo is freely available to all on the web ....

I get a message from the Webmaster of the site hosting the photo etc ....

"you are using up my bandwidth"

"you didn't ask my permission" etc etc ....

Am I really the bad guy on this? .....

(the host of the forum I raised the question on was quite happy ..... the photo demonstrated my question perfectly .... I didn't copy the photo but simply provided a link to it ..... and I received lots of good replies)

fade2black

Quick answer is yes. The admins of this forum will regularly get mails from people who are imorally/ilegally linking images in their sigs.

hobie

Quick answer is yes

not what I was hoping for ..... but the signature example makes a good point :rolleyes:

could I try it this way ...... I post the Address i.e. not a hyperlink .... but just directions to get to the photo ..... the photo will not show unless someone specifically wants to go look at it ....

example ... Trevor Seargent photo ..... to see it add http://

dynimg.rte.ie/00007f4e0b2.jpg

Would that be ok? ....

Karoma

You can't win. People don't want you using their bandwidth to display an image which they've made freely available for viewing on the Internet. Yet, they may not want you to copy it and host it elsewhere for copyright reasons.

Upload the image to a free image hosting site like imageshack.us (Pop in the URL and it'll copy it over). Then, link to the image on the free host, and in your posts state the original owner's details.

fade2black

Yep..that'd be your best bet.

L31mr0d

yeah but seriously though. What kindof tightwad is going to complain about a hotlinked image taking up bandwidth, unless it was a seriously popular thread and the image was 2MB+ or something.

I hotlink all the time, not for the fun of it but for the same reason as hobie. If i need help with a subject and i've found a bit of information pertaining to it, i'm either going to post a link to the site (eating up more of their bandwidth by downloading their whole page) or i'm going to just post the image that's relevant. Agreeably not everone who views the thread is going to go to the link, but then again the bandwidth saved by not making people go to the hosts entire page might counter balance this. Either way we'll never know unless we endeavor into some serious statistical research into the area.

Regardless, the understanding on the matter is that it IS ILLEGAL to hotlink by infringing on some (c) laws of the owner.

But it happens, along with piracy, hacking, cracking, warez, spamming...etc. The internet is festering with illegality, if hotlinking was the worst we had to worry about I think we'd be a helluvalot better off.

Karoma

An aside,but: Providing a direct link, as opposed to inline image, may not reduce as many hits to the owner's server as you may think with a lot of people using "advanced caching" or "prefetch" techniques. (i.e. Users browser automatically,and in the background,downloads a copy of where the link is pointing.) And, despite the small filesize, it is unwanted & unexpected traffic and stress on another's server which may impact on performance.

At the end of the day, I do it. Most people do it. But if you receive a complaint, you are bound by decency and (possibly) law to respect their wishes and provide an alternative solution.

hobie

At the end of the day, I do it. Most people do it. But if you receive a complaint, you are bound by decency and (possibly) law to respect their wishes and provide an alternative solution.

oh well ....

I did delete the link as soon as the guy complained .... I didn't want to copy and paste the photo on my own photo hosting site simply because I do think that could be called "Pinching a photo" ..... I guess I thought I was doing the guy an indirect favour by getting more traffic to his site and solving my problem at the same time :rolleyes: .... but he very much thought the opposite ....

..... and I don't even down load free music .... or take drugs or even $$$$$$$ drink! ..... my life !!!!

Karoma

Understandable.
When you're directly linking to an image or any 1 thing- you're not doing him a favour, merely using his resources. Pointing a page on his server may prove beneficial to him, as he may be getting paid for impressions through advertising.

hobie

Pointing to a page on his server may prove beneficial to him, as he may be getting paid for impressions through advertising.

I did actually post a link to his site home page under the photo but the link itself was deleted by the 'someone' ..... then the request came in to delete the photo ..... you can't win can you .... :rolleyes: