I know that sounds harsh, but it is true. There is even a Wikipedia entry on the subject (doesn't surprise me). For the uninitiated, let me give an example. Let's say I have a nice picture on my web site. You come surfing through and think Geez, that would look nice on my web site! Since I do plainly post both copyright and Creative Commons licenses, I have no problems with others using my published works, provided they give me credit for it. And the term using implies that they serve it from their host, not mine.
Trivial, you say. What are a few extra bytes down the stream? Those few extra bytes add up very quickly if you decide to hot link to my graphic on MySpace or Facebook or some random message board. Last year, I was working on a client's web site. The traffic levels were very consistent from day to day until one day, the site's bandwidth went up 3000%, a trend that only grew. I found out that someone had hotlinked a 125 KB graphic on a page that was featured on Digg, Wired, Slashdot, and a number of other high traffic drawing sites. Bottom line is that my client, not the offender, suddenly had overage charges for bandwidth. Simple equation: bandwidth = money. It also degrades the victim's own web site.
My usual tactic is to change the name of the graphic and modify my site to the new name. Pain in the butt and yes, costs me time to do it. Then the offender gets a broken image and, yes, I get an additional 404 (file not found) line in my log files.
If you are serving your web site with Apache and have mod_rewrite enabled, another method is available. Simply add the following lines to the .htaccess file in your web root directory:
substituting your domain name in it. The drawback of this is that you cannot use your own images on other web sites outside the domain unless you modify the rules for each reference (PITA).
And, of course, retribution can be fun too. This can be done with method 1, replacing the hotllinked file with it, or with some server side tricks, like mod_rewrite or scripting. The "it" is a graphic that will give a subtle hint to the offender that you are really displeased with what they are doing...
Sad to say, this either draws flames or, worse yet, more folks hotlinking to it.
What's the best way to deal with it? Most times, I leave them a comment or send them an email and ask them to conform to the rules of common courtesy. If that doesn't work, I just remove/rename the graphic. It all takes time, time that I could be doing more resourceful things.
Trivial, you say. What are a few extra bytes down the stream? Those few extra bytes add up very quickly if you decide to hot link to my graphic on MySpace or Facebook or some random message board. Last year, I was working on a client's web site. The traffic levels were very consistent from day to day until one day, the site's bandwidth went up 3000%, a trend that only grew. I found out that someone had hotlinked a 125 KB graphic on a page that was featured on Digg, Wired, Slashdot, and a number of other high traffic drawing sites. Bottom line is that my client, not the offender, suddenly had overage charges for bandwidth. Simple equation: bandwidth = money. It also degrades the victim's own web site.
My usual tactic is to change the name of the graphic and modify my site to the new name. Pain in the butt and yes, costs me time to do it. Then the offender gets a broken image and, yes, I get an additional 404 (file not found) line in my log files.
If you are serving your web site with Apache and have mod_rewrite enabled, another method is available. Simply add the following lines to the .htaccess file in your web root directory:
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule \.(gif|jpg|js|css|swf|png)$ - [F]
substituting your domain name in it. The drawback of this is that you cannot use your own images on other web sites outside the domain unless you modify the rules for each reference (PITA).
And, of course, retribution can be fun too. This can be done with method 1, replacing the hotllinked file with it, or with some server side tricks, like mod_rewrite or scripting. The "it" is a graphic that will give a subtle hint to the offender that you are really displeased with what they are doing...
Sad to say, this either draws flames or, worse yet, more folks hotlinking to it.
What's the best way to deal with it? Most times, I leave them a comment or send them an email and ask them to conform to the rules of common courtesy. If that doesn't work, I just remove/rename the graphic. It all takes time, time that I could be doing more resourceful things.
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