Anyway To Positively Utilize Bandwidth Theft Via An Image

Michael Knight · Joined: Jul 24, 2003 Posts: 88

Someone pasted a photo on my site on their blog without saving it on their server. I've been getting like 18,000 hits a month just from this one photo. Perhaps replacing the photo with an ad would benefit me although they couldn't click on it. I was just going to teach them a lesson and replace the .jpg image with an x-rated photo. Smile

greyknight17 · Joined: Feb 03, 2003 Posts: 5058 Location: Brooklyn, NY

I think a lot of webhosts should have something called hotlink protection (cPanel feature as far as I know). Try it out...

silmaril8n · Joined: Jan 29, 2004 Posts: 1743 Location: Phoenix, AZ

Like greyknight17 said, it's called hotlinking and it can be pulled off with a couple of lines in your .htaccess file located in the image directory (or anywhere above it in the directory structure).

There are many ways to do it, and I don't have it enabled on any of my sites right now (mainly because none of my sites have enough images for me to care), but a Google search for "htaccess hotlink protection" should do the trick.

profhig · Joined: Sep 06, 2003 Posts: 239 Location: Tamworth, UK

Could you not find the contact for the person, explain politeley what has happened, that you understand it wasn't deliberate but that it is draining your bandwidth. Ask if he could remove the link. If he/she isn't accomodating, get a bit more bolshie.
#Secondly, and forgive me if I am not understanding this- I don't write code and don't have time to learn it- can't you break the link to your site from your end? Perhaps remove the picture and replace it, even the same one renamed or reformatted or something?
If I am way off the mark, just trying to help.

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 34

You can always handle it the nasty way. Save the image to a new file name and change the html on your page to use the new file name. Then replace the original image with something pornographic and a message saying "The owner of the site you are viewing is a hot-linking scum bag." I've never had to do this but a friend did and the problem never happened again.

I did have someone download one of my images and crop out the watermarks and use it on a commercial site. I sent an email telling him that it was copyright and to remove it. He wrote back saying that he didn't know that it was copyrighted. I told him that if he did not remove it my lawyer would contact his hosting company, his ISP and a few government authorities. He removed it the next day.

Michael Knight · Joined: Jul 24, 2003 Posts: 88

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 34

Hee-hee!
I love it when a plan comes together![/img]

PhotoCarp · Joined: Sep 06, 2007 Posts: 34

And lo. This link shows up in a newsletter to which I subscribe.

http://www.sionmc.com/storace/stealing.htm