The pictures and the thief

I'm talking to you, punk.

A few weeks ago I noticed that someone was hotlinking to some of my pictures from the blog. Not sure what Hotlinking is?  Let’s turn to Wikipedia for help!

Hot-linking is a term used on the Internet. Hot-linking is when someone uses a link to an image that is saved on another website instead of saving a copy of the image on the website that the picture will be shown on. For example, instead of saving picture.gif and loading it on to their own website, the person uses a link to the picture as http://website.com/picture.gif. Hot-linking uses the bandwidth of the person who owns the website where the picture is stored. This costs that person money. This is why many website owners are using .htaccess files and uploading it to their websites.

In some cases website owners use the .htaccess file to replace any hot-linked images with an offensive image to deter any other website owners from hot-linking.

Want more info?  Check out this other Wikipedia article, or this little article over here.

This is considered stealing.

Not cool kids.

I told Scott about the situation and we came to the conclusion that it needed to be addressed immediately.  I wanted to do a switcheroo and either sub in text calling the person some very creative combo of adjectives or redirect it so that the image pointed to some very hardcore adult funtimes.

Because when you decide to eff with me, that is how I roll. I will take you out.

Scott, however, is much more classy and said that in order to be more professional the image will just cease to exist.

Now people cannot steal and hotlink my photos.

Stealing on the internet sucks but it happens.  We have all either witnessed or been a victim of someone stealing images or recipes and using them as their own.  There’s really not to much that can be done about that.  However I can fully stop some punk from hotlinking my images.

If you subscribe to OHC via a reader and my images are no longer showing up for you, this is probably why.  Since I had to stop outside entities from getting my pictures, Google can’t really scrape and pull my images into reader.  At least this is my impression.

I subscribe to OHC as well and I can see pictures just fine in my reader.  When I update Facebook with my latest post, Facebook cannot get images from my site either.  So if you are a fan and have been wondering why there are no thumbnails associated with my posts, that’s why.

Because someone decided to steal my stuff and I had to take care of business.

I understand if not seeing pictures in your reader is frustrating, but I also hope that you understand the situation I was forced into and had to deal with.

Thanks gang! :D

12 thoughts on “The pictures and the thief

    • Thanks Side of Sneakers! :)
      Sarah, Technically, yes. Sent you an email!
      Heather (Mile26), In my stats I saw that someone was linking to me and went to investigate. Saw that they had my images up in their blog post with no credit or mention that it was mine. Noticed the hotlinking of my pictures and took action.

  1. Is this what I’m doing if I use Google images and then post a photo on my blog using a link (also with image source link under the photo)?

    I am so ignorant about a lot of this stuff. So sorry this happened to you but I’m glad you are taking care of it.

  2. Thanks for this post. I didn’t even know this was something you shouldn’t do. I link to other web photos sometimes, always giving source information, but I never realized it negatively impacted another user. Good info.

  3. That blows!! I think people assume that internet stealing is okay, but it’s still illegal and it sucks. Sorry that happened but now I TOTALLY understand why I can see some people’s pics in my reader and why I can’t see others. Wow, thank you for clearing that up for me! ;)

  4. Oh man – now I’m stressed out! Did this just jump off your page stats (I saw yoru answer to heather) or do you have fancy Google stats or something else that you noticed it from?! I’m so obtuse when it comes to analyzing my stats! (and am prone to paranoia very easily!) :P

  5. Ummmm…I have questions. How did you figure out someone was hotlinking? What tipped you off? How can I find out if someone is doing it to me?

    I’ve honestly become increasingly paranoid about that kind of thing – which is why I’ve started watermarking all my pictures. Although, honestly, I wonder if it makes a difference.

  6. I am having an off day – why exactly don’t they show up in reader?

    When I used to check my stats and see people were hotlinking I would rename the photo. Muah ha ha.

Leave a Reply to Sarah @ See Sarah Eat Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.