directly linked images
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.
Not having much of an interest in motorcycles myself, enlighten me. Why are they linking to your pics? Are they saying, “Here’s a pic of a bike I really, really want” ?
But back to the subject of motorcycles, I heard there’s some super-duper one coming out with 2 (2??) front wheels that can go up to 300 mph (why??)!
I don’t know why they were linking to the pictures. The two sites I’m referring to are A hard man 2 find and Bad AZ III. Maybe you’ll have more luck figuring out why they did it. Just so you’re aware, the second link has pictures of women who, while clothed, don’t leave much to the imagination.
To answer your second question, it’s because people enjoy competition and setting records. That’s why we have the Guiness Book of World Records or sporting events, because people can compete against one another.
If a motorcycle could only go 100MPH, I could go faster than that in my Maxima, and that’s not very impressive. So they make it faster, which allows them to tout its impressive performance. Plus, it’s fun.
Sure, you could go over 100 mph in your Maxima… but I bet it has a seat belt and roof to hold you on/in it! :D
But you don’t feel the speed as much. The wind in your face, the ground rushing by. It’s quite a rush.
I do believe Dan likes to live on the edge a little ;)