Two sites were linking directly to photos of my motorcycle, so I swapped the image with one that said, “Please don’t link directly to my images. You’re stealing my bandwidth” I left it for a few days but they didn’t change it. I considered writing rude things about them, thinking it would be fun to mock them on their own web site, but decided against it. Instead, I renamed the image and figured they would get the message. They didn’t. They still have the broken links to my images.

I enjoyed reading about Heather’s solution when people were stealing her images. Dave thought of it too. It’s funny for a while, but then it gets old, and the standard solution becomes more appealing.

My stats currently show nearly 1500 hits with 0 page views from 20 different sites. The fact that there are 0 page views means the image was linked directly. If it’s just a few sites, I don’t mind, but when it reaches into the thousands, my bandwidth usage becomes an issue. Instead of trying to convince people to stop doing it, I used the mod_rewrite module in apache to stop the problem. Now, images can only be displayed on my site.

Here are two more links about hot linking and bandwidth stealing.

This problem is not going away anytime soon. The recent meme about weight-watcher recipes had the same problem.

Dante said, “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserved their neutrality.”

On the issue of the war, I have sat myself firmly upon the fence. Dante’s statement sounds a bit harsh, partly because I have a reason for not taking sides. I have not been able to find enough unbiased information to make a decision for or against the war. Too much of the information I receive is marred by political agendas or ulterior motives for one side or the other. As a result, my opinions sway back and forth like a fickle sapling. I plan to continue watching the news, but it’s probably not a bad idea to consider alternative options.