Without an image that someone ELSE made or invented or took, you and every other blogger are up sh!t creek, aren’t you? What would the net be without images? But the DMCA has rules about copyright, which you SAY you know, but you don’t quote it. Under those rules, no image can be copied or used, none, unless it’s fair use, and you’ll have to look up that, too – it always involves a review of some kind.

As for confusing copyright with hotlinking, how idiotic are you? One is stealing intellectual copyright, one is stealing bandwidth. Are you so ignorant that you don’t know that images take up bandwidth? IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LINKS OR LINKING!!!!

You did NOT attribute the content clearly, and saying “well, you could read the source code, find the reference to a different site, and then go digging around there” is a non-starter, and a weak defense. I might as well include an inline frame, or use javascript to inline all of your text blog posts, and have them appear on my blog without attribution. Would you feel the same then? I’d use the same defense you’re using against you.

!c

I won’t pretend to have read every comment, the posts are quite a bit old now. I just wanted to jog in a little opinion from “nobody” who doesn’t know much about nothing.

What offends me is this: the hotlinked image was “stealing” or “appropriating” or “borrowing” or “what-the-H-ever” the bandwidth from another server. I don’t think the inclusion of an image online is necessarily free-reign for use. I don’t think anything you can say would excuse the contributing-editor’s misuse of another’s bandwidth. “ouch, sorry” would have sufficed.

Your rambling about “cache” is only relevant if the target audience of the article were readers who were linking over from the original site where the image was hosted. Thus, the image would have already been in the cache.. right? Or possibly I missed your point. sounded a bit deep in it.

I do appreciate the whole legalese premise of your ‘rebuttal’, makes for quite interesting defensive posting.

Further note: As far as I’m concerned, the hotlinking was ‘uncalled-for’. The response may not have been polite, but afterall.. what if professional bloggers just hotlinked each other’s images all day long? of course, you would probably note they do when they include little buttons to visit their friend’s sites.

The biggest issue of them all, as far as I’m concerned, is quality control. It worries me that the company that I work for has editors inserting YouTube videos directly into articles. Besides the problems with allowing them to write HTML on their own, (which is nearly always invalid…) we have no control over what YouTube do with the file we have embedded. Sometimes the file is the subject of a DMCA takedown notice (Ironically, often issued by our parent company who own the copyright !) and we end up with a “Sorry, this video is no longer available.” message instead of the video we originally embedded. Embedding javascript ads from a third party company worries me just as much, if not more. Youtube and our ad suppliers are reasonably reliable but imagine what the angry young blogger who already “stole” the images from the actual content creator could do to your site with a quick rewrite rule and an offensive image.

I’m firmly of the opinion that hotlinking is not a copyright violation (and definitely not “stealing”) and I’m not sure about serving up your own copy of the image either. Proxy servers cache copies, Google caches copies, your own computer caches a copy. Why would it be a violation for a website to cache a copy ? Until the courts decide the issue of making perfect, or even imperfect, digital copies of copyrighted materials, even the lawyers are just full of hot air.

From Response #60

The IP doesn’t pay my hosting bills. The IP also makes many security attacks possible. That doesn’t make it right to attack someone.

It is you that made the claim that someone is being “attacked” and I merely responded that any such claim is ridiculous.

From Response #86

I never said DU was attacking anyone. Someone
else said that the internet protocol makes
hotlinking possible, so it’s ok to hotlink. I
pointed out that IP (Well, HTTP really) makes
attacks possible too, but it doesn’t mean it’s
right to attack people.

It is illogical to compare the use of the web as it was designed with the exploitation of the http protocol for nefarious purposes. The former utilizes a fundamental design principle of the web whereas the later relates to attempts to pervert those design principles to seize control of a person’s machine or glean privileged information. One is using the web as it was intended whereas the other is not.

Then, don’t complain about the consequences of playing devil’s advocate.

After reading SeanH’s comments, I retract my post #1. You are right to go into legalese given his attitude, which was presumably expressed on his site beforehand.

As previously stated, it’s not my website. I have nothing to do with it. I’m simply playing devil’s advocate in the debate.

There is no “attack” here and to claim as such is ridiculous.

I never said DU was attacking anyone. Someone else said that the internet protocol makes hotlinking possible, so it’s ok to hotlink. I pointed out that IP (Well, HTTP really) makes attacks possible too, but it doesn’t mean it’s right to attack people.

If you’re going to quote me, you should follow the whole conversation so you don’t look foolish.

Very well written introduction and comments. A tip of the hat.

#81, Thomas,

I like your analogy about the candy.

***

I consider the “web” as akin to a public beach. Anyone can get there for the price of bus fare or parking. Look at whatever other people are there. It doesn’t matter what their suit costs, looking is free. Staring or overt oogling may be rude, but they are not illegal. If someone objects to you, or anyone for that matter, admiring their revealing bathing suit then it their prerogative to cover up or else leave the beach. Heck, they could even hang a blanket or towel between you and them.

- Hotlinking is rude, but not illegal.
- Hotlinking uses a sites bandwidth without providing any benefit to that site.
- Hotlinking is pretty lazy
- Hosting, and then distributing, someones creative work is copyright infringment. Hotlinking avoids this hurdle, but adds others.
- Hotlinking is easily stopped on the server side
- Hotlinking is awful for your site in terms of consistancy and quality control.

All in all I’m happy for people to hotlink, the people that take liberties with this must also be happy with the fact that I can change the image to anything I want. Be that a giant set of rainbow penises, or as suggested earlier, horse porn.

I think the right thing to do would be to reprimand whoever did it and stop defending it. It may be a mild infraction, but it was still a discourteous thing to do.

B. There is no “theft” in that nothing was taken from the site that was not freely provided. If someone puts out a bag of candy for all to have, you cannot claim theft when someone takes a piece nor can you claim theft if I mention to someone else where the bag is located without mentioning who put out the bag.

C. There was no “theft of creativity” unless we establish that he actually created the image in the first place.

If I create a portal site with images I found from scouring the web and someone hotlinks to those images, I cannot claim “theft” of anything.

I still think you are at fault, given the context of your site. What bothers me is the theft of creativity without attribution. I assumed you had come up with that picture yourselves, and now I am left to wonder about some of the other pics you put up to accompany your posts. The other pictures he hotlinked don’t strike me as relevant, as they are just regular pictures.