Originally Posted by punkworld

What he did wasn't the "nice thing" to do. However, since the law does not require you to be nice, and since hotlinkers have no right to the hotlinked content, the host had no business changing his file, and most definitely had no right to prevent him from changing it.

Imagine the following situation:
-You find yourself being hotlinked by a huge site.
-You install hotlink protection. Now, hotlinked images show Goatse.
-The huge site mails your host, your host removes your hotlink protection.
-You install hotlink protection again. Now, hotlinked images say "buy books at mysite.com".
-You host removes your hotlink protection again, and for good measure shuts you out of your account.

If you think the host or the huge site are in the right here, you are out of your mind. And that's pretty much exactly what happened here.