Bandwidth stealing..?

[RockMyAmadeus]

So....since the dawn of the WWW as far as the general public has been concerned, the ease of linking pics from other websites has been easy, and, most importantly, not actively discouraged by anyone.

 

However...with bandwidth restrictions, many sites, especially small ones, are getting cranky about pic links. But are bandwidth restrictions in place everywhere? Does it really cost someone, somewhere money if someone links a pic every single time?

 

Don't know.

 

Sooooo....it's far, far easier to direct link, rather than save and upload, but if it actually costs someone, that's theft.

 

On the other hand, when it's attached directly to the board, the original link is lost, and I cannot tell you how many times I've backtracked back to sites that I ended up liking specifically because of the linked pic, which IS the ultimate goal of a site, is it not? Attachments destroy that ability.

 

What to do? The answer seems fairly obvious, but it's not as easy as that.

 

:shrug:

[sckao]

 

Yes. Bandwidth costs money and is a de facto part of your ISP bill. It only costs "money" if you cause a site to EXCEED their bandwidth allotment with their ISP.

 

Many ISPs (GoDaddy) now offer unlimited bandwidth with their hosting accounts... so those sites really have nothing to complain about other than copyright/fair use issues.

 

 

 

 

 

[rob_react]

So....since the dawn of the WWW as far as the general public has been concerned, the ease of linking pics from other websites has been easy, and, most importantly, not actively discouraged by anyone.

 

However...with bandwidth restrictions, many sites, especially small ones, are getting cranky about pic links. But are bandwidth restrictions in place everywhere? Does it really cost someone, somewhere money if someone links a pic every single time?

 

It depends on who's doing the leeching and the leeched's hosting set up. If a high profile site leeches an image from someone with draconian overage charges it can cost serious money.

[rob_react]

so those sites really have nothing to complain about other than copyright/fair use issues.

 

 

Which are a big deal, by themselves.

[RockMyAmadeus]

So....since the dawn of the WWW as far as the general public has been concerned, the ease of linking pics from other websites has been easy, and, most importantly, not actively discouraged by anyone.

 

However...with bandwidth restrictions, many sites, especially small ones, are getting cranky about pic links. But are bandwidth restrictions in place everywhere? Does it really cost someone, somewhere money if someone links a pic every single time?

 

It depends on who's doing the leeching and the leeched's hosting set up. If a high profile site leeches an image from someone with draconian overage charges it can cost serious money.

 

Thanks Rob and sckao. These are things that non-site owners and non-IT guys really don't think about much, if at all.

 

So what's the answer...?

 

(I highly suspect the answer is "there isn't one, at least not that is applied consistently.")

 

Here's my issue: I don't want to steal from anyone, in any way. But, like I said before, how do I know? Is the answer just to always save, attach, and upload? Then we lose access to the original links, which is to the site's detriment.

 

Copyright/fair use is, indeed, a big deal, but what we do here is essentially review, and sites like CGC easily fall under fair use requirements. I've yet to see non-review-worthy chunks of works linked here. We link a lot of covers, for example, which easily falls under "fair use for review purposes" (and, indeed, inspires positive commerce for the copyright holders in many ways.)

[sckao]

 

When I grab some content from another site, I like to provide the URL to that site as well. That way, they get the hit.

 

I try not to grab the entire article as well... maybe just a salient paragraph.

 

So you could save an Image and then attach it... but provide a link to the original site in the Post.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

When I grab some content from another site, I like to provide the URL to that site as well. That way, they get the hit.

 

I try not to grab the entire article as well... maybe just a salient paragraph.

 

So you could save an Image and then attach it... but provide a link to the original site in the Post.

 

 

 

That's a good idea.

[DiceX]

I like turtles.

 

 

[DrWatson]

I like turtles.

You should be liking turtles in the Water Cooler... along with this thread.

[The Less Blob]

so those sites really have nothing to complain about other than copyright/fair use issues.

 

 

Which are a big deal, by themselves.

 

i wouldn't think that providing a link to a website would implicate these issues.

 

grabbing the image and putting it here would.

[comicwiz]

There are several issues, a few of which have been well covered by Shin and Rob. Ultimately, don't host images that don't belong to you without getting permission. Sometimes, the way around this is through proper attribution and asking permission. Plagiarism is a big problem in social media, and you'd be amazed how some companies actually lift people's ideas and entire works, with no attribution or link to the original source. Yes, you read right - companies - not just people, but actual companies that do this kind of thing.

 

The issue not covered is the way images can sometimes expose vulnerabilities on hosting sites. Hacking image directories, especially those which lead to a successful spam attack, cost the site owner hundreds of man hours to correct. I've witnessed and heard entire catalogues (with photos), and entire databases needing to be wiped clean in order to rid intrusion scripts/software that was using the host site to either infect the site, cause the site to perform poorly, vandalize content, and/or send out spam messages that unknowingly were being sent using the site owners brand/domain name.

 

Think about the hours it takes to put up a proper VCC or sales thread in the marketplace, with front and back scans, and then multiply that by hundreds, sometimes thousands of hours, and you can start to appreciate how a lazy act of direct posting of an image creates undue risk for a site owner, when it would be simpler to save the photo to your machine, upload it to photobucket, and then direct link it from your own photobucket account, a site which is intended to do the image sharing without exposing a site owners intellectual property to undue security breach.

 

If you are a site owner, and are noticing a significant load of traffic being generated by an image being used on a site - no matter what the purpose - the best thing to do is to reach out and advise the thread starter, site admin, or site owner of the the fact that permission of use was never granted. If there isn't any compliance, swap the image with a "bandwidth thief" image marker, and restore your image using a different name. The notion of directing traffic and audience attention is not only a pretense, but overlooks the fact that using an image for site hackers to discover in the wild, without notifying the site owner of what you've done, could eventually cause annoyance and/or serious harm.

[mycomicshop]

As far as we're concerned, anybody's welcome to direct link our images as much as they want here on the boards. A link to our issue page where the image originated is always appreciated, but even just the image is fine.

 

Larger scale direct linking, like if somebody had a web site and was systematically linking to hundreds of images, would be of more concern.

[FlyingDonut]

So....since the dawn of the WWW as far as the general public has been concerned, the ease of linking pics from other websites has been easy, and, most importantly, not actively discouraged by anyone.

 

However...with bandwidth restrictions, many sites, especially small ones, are getting cranky about pic links. But are bandwidth restrictions in place everywhere? Does it really cost someone, somewhere money if someone links a pic every single time?

 

It depends on who's doing the leeching and the leeched's hosting set up. If a high profile site leeches an image from someone with draconian overage charges it can cost serious money.

 

Speaking as somebody who had a hosting bill go up by 25X one month because somebody grabbed an image off my site, it kind of sucks.

[comicwiz]

As far as we're concerned, anybody's welcome to direct link our images as much as they want here on the boards. A link to our issue page where the image originated is always appreciated, but even just the image is fine.

 

Larger scale direct linking, like if somebody had a web site and was systematically linking to hundreds of images, would be of more concern.

 

Watermarks are certainly one way to dissuade use, and/or force attribution that could generate "wanted" traffic to a site.

 

The biggest concern is when a site owner uses a 3rd-party to produce web content, and or their entire online presence. The 3rd-party developers and programmers are scripting their sites according to spec, at that moment in time, and no matter how good their work, design and/or functionality-wise, there is no best before date standard with Website development or site scripting.

 

Search is a very powerful tool being used by hackers and spam harvesters to discover exploits, and something as simple as not having the proper read or write permissions applied to a site directory could leave that site vulnerable to attack. Unfortunately, sites that are manned by owners with little or no web design/development experience become easy targets, and in such situations, images being shared unknowingly in online environments could expose that site owner to any number of vulnerabilities and attacks.

[comicwiz]

So....since the dawn of the WWW as far as the general public has been concerned, the ease of linking pics from other websites has been easy, and, most importantly, not actively discouraged by anyone.

 

However...with bandwidth restrictions, many sites, especially small ones, are getting cranky about pic links. But are bandwidth restrictions in place everywhere? Does it really cost someone, somewhere money if someone links a pic every single time?

 

It depends on who's doing the leeching and the leeched's hosting set up. If a high profile site leeches an image from someone with draconian overage charges it can cost serious money.

 

Speaking as somebody who had a hosting bill go up by 25X one month because somebody grabbed an image off my site, it kind of sucks.

 

The pain caused by the monetary setback of bandwidth stealing, while serious, is dwarfed in comparison to having your site appear on Google's malware list.

[Green]

it would be simpler to save the photo to your machine, upload it to photobucket, and then direct link it from your own photobucket account

[comicwiz]

it would be simpler to save the photo to your machine, upload it to photobucket, and then direct link it from your own photobucket account

 

 

It took me all of 1 minute to copy the baiting gremlin, login to photobucket, and post it.

[rob_react]

So....since the dawn of the WWW as far as the general public has been concerned, the ease of linking pics from other websites has been easy, and, most importantly, not actively discouraged by anyone.

 

However...with bandwidth restrictions, many sites, especially small ones, are getting cranky about pic links. But are bandwidth restrictions in place everywhere? Does it really cost someone, somewhere money if someone links a pic every single time?

 

It depends on who's doing the leeching and the leeched's hosting set up. If a high profile site leeches an image from someone with draconian overage charges it can cost serious money.

 

Speaking as somebody who had a hosting bill go up by 25X one month because somebody grabbed an image off my site, it kind of sucks.

 

Yeah, it can be really bad. GB can add up really quickly under the right circumstances. A viral blog post that hotlinks to an image can generate tens or even hundreds of thousands of views in a day.

[sl4ppy]

bandwidth charges are the long-distance charges of the internet.

 

Eventually they wont exist, but until then, ISP's see them as a way to milk people for revenue.

 

Most reputable hosts/isp/etc dont charge for bandwidth unless you get into enterprise level throughput.

 

I do several GB per month in data bandwidth and it's still (and should always be) free...

[Crows]

bandwidth charges are the long-distance charges of the internet.

 

Eventually they wont exist, but until then, ISP's see them as a way to milk people for revenue.

 

Most reputable hosts/isp/etc dont charge for bandwidth unless you get into enterprise level throughput.

 

I do several GB per month in data bandwidth and it's still (and should always be) free...

I totally agree, and have no doubt cable TV are kicking themselves for not thinking of charging by the minute.