Comments on: Pinched Pelican Problem

Question: Pinched Pelican Problem

jonathanbell — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 11:58:22 -0800

Is it acceptable for a website to reproduce around 20 images on their front page, approximately 150k each, from our website while keeping them hosted on our server? I've never really understood the etiquette or protocol in this situation, but our bandwidth suddenly doubled and it obviously wasn't hard to find out who the culprit was. There seems little point in linking to the sites in question, but what have others done in this situation? Thanks in advance.

By: rocketpup

rocketpup — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:01:37 -0800

Hot-linking is a no-no unless you explicitly permit it. Among the things you can do are:

1) Write a polite email
2) Change the names of your images
3) Do #2 and then replace the old filenames with images that are more... creative.

By: nitsuj

nitsuj — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:03:43 -0800

Yes, hotlinking, or inline linking, is not kind. It is possible, however, that the offender just doesn't understand the way things work, and a simple email -- as noted above -- is all it will take.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:04:42 -0800

If you can't absorb the increased load, this is usually handled by using your web server to block/redirect any requests that don't come from your own site. Your images will work from your site, the images they are linking will have their site as the referrer and will be blocked.

This is generally the nuclear bomb option since all their images will break.

By: Solomon

Solomon — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:04:43 -0800

I would simply change the file names. Or, if I was feeling vengeful, turn the tables on them, and link to some of their pictures, and drain their bandwidth.

By: Sonic_Molson

Sonic_Molson — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:09:49 -0800

Not acceptable, they are making you pay for bandwidth that only benefits them.

Any of the suggestions given above will work.

By: Liver

Liver — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:10:07 -0800

Here's what one MeFite did to ameliorate a similar situation. [mildly NSFW - page contains the word "ass" in a largish font]

By: krautland

krautland — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:10:14 -0800

well, is the hotlinking site a servie like FFFFOUND or cpluv that links to your images to highlight you or are they using them for their own purposes? if it's the latter, I'd be an ass and change the images to something fun like goatse or an image from rotten.com.

hotlinking is a bad nono. they are taking advantage of you if they're i.e. a furniture store. think about what they really don't want to see on their homepage and make your image just that. they gave you the billboard, it's up to you to use it.

By: Netzapper

Netzapper — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:13:32 -0800

No, it's generally viewed that what they're doing is not acceptable. They may not know that, but that's neither here nor there. They're costing you money, and not giving you anything in return. They didn't even have the decency to host the damn images themselves.

If I were you, I'd replace the current images with penises. I wouldn't bother to email them.

By: Deflagro

Deflagro — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:14:02 -0800

Here is a good article on how to change your htaccess file on your server so that whenever someone tries to use an image off your server on another site, it will replace with another image. (i.e. when someone tries to use your images on a different server, they get a different default picture saying something else)

By: rodgerd

rodgerd — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:19:32 -0800

Rewriting your images to goatse or tubgirl can prove satisfying, if juvenile. Some examples.

By: jayder

jayder — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:25:32 -0800

If I were you, I'd replace the current images with penises.

Would replacing it with goatse be too obvious, too passe?

By: tocts

tocts — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:26:32 -0800

To answer the question of whether this is OK: no, it is not.

Regarding what to do, the most "adult" option would be to use mod_rewrite or similar to redirect any off-site links to a generic "Please Do Not Steal My Bandwidth" image. The most satisfying option is probably the same, but with goatse or tubgirl.

By: chrisamiller

chrisamiller — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:26:39 -0800

Try a polite email first, if contact info is available. If they ignore you, or say NO, then you're completely justified in burning their retinas with goat.se

By: camworld

camworld — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 12:26:59 -0800

The person doing this probably just does not understand how these here intarwebs thingies work. Send a nice email asking them to stop. If they do not comply or ignore you, goatse the images.

If it's a HUGE bandwidth suck for you, then redirect the requests so your server's bandwidth is not used up.

By: holloway

holloway — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 14:49:00 -0800

Assuming that you're running Apache, then here's an online wizard that will make an .htaccess file for you to prevent image leeching (which is what I've always heard it called)

http://isnoop.net/dev/mod_rewrite.php

By: JFitzpatrick

JFitzpatrick — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:02:31 -0800

Level 1 - Contact them. Maybe they're complete morons and new to the intertubes.

Level 2 - Blacklist requests from their server. People above have given you links to do that.

Level 3 - I'd suggest against the goatse/penis route unless it's the kind of site that people who are already familiar with goatse would visit. Nothing says you can't put ridiculous pictures up that will embarrass the hell out of the guy though.

By: nomisxid

nomisxid — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:28:26 -0800

You could also put a visible watermark on the versions of the images that they are 'borrowing', so that everyone knows, "hey, site A is stealing this image from site B; maybe I should just go directly to site B". I did that for my highly borrowed "punk" image. I still get a good 15% of my traffic as background images to people's myspace pages, but now I get the occasional effective click thru.

By: Mael Oui

Mael Oui — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:18:50 -0800

It's definitely not cool to hotlink, but I'd suggest being a bit more mature and not swapping your images for something that some might find objectionable. You don't indicate what sort of site it is that is using your images, but if it's one that is generally assumed to be SFW and children accessible, it really wouldn't be acceptable for you to post something repulsive like the many suggestions above. I mean, seriously you don't need to scar innocent people for life just to get your point across. If I were in your place, I would probably take down the images or change their URL.

By: SuzySmith

SuzySmith — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:39:27 -0800

I always put up an image that says "This ass is stealing bandwidth" when they hotlink to my images.

By: Jacqueline

Jacqueline — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:51:40 -0800

Change the image URLs/links on your own page to something else.

Change all the URLs they are hotlinking to Goatse.

By: jscott

jscott — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:51:55 -0800

Here's what one MeFite did to ameliorate a similar situation.

I find that a lot of people would prefer I not be identified as a "MeFite". I give you guys a bad name.

By: jonathanbell

jonathanbell — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:13:54 -0800

Thanks everyone. The site has proved impossible to get hold of, unfortunately, and the nuclear option seems a bit, well, nuclear (and also a massive hassle to me), so I shall just wait until the post falls off their front page. Many thanks again.