50 great business decisions taken ;) fuck the haters

You're an idiot... get out of this business soon before it's too late.

err I wanted to post this in dugmor's thread... my bad

I like the way you think...

wow taken from webgems AUP
boy is that a load of bs

yeah hit us up we will hook it up

I have added http://www.webgemshosting.com/ to my blacklist and checked out their IP blocks.

That is why I like being close(literally) to my webhost so that I can take action when action is needed.

Vigilante justice is a lame argument. Besides, you just can't overlook the fact that the popup was meant specifically for MySpace and not his own site.

He should sue them if he thinks he has a legit bandwidth theft case here, but I don't think he does since no attempt was ever made to block MySpace. It was the opposite. He knowingly allowed the hotlinking to continue, to increase and then slipped in the popup to get free advertising on MySpace.

This guy should be thanking his webhost for pulling the file right away. It saved him from potentially being sued by MySpace. Seriously.

who?

that is bullshit

Retracted until further investigation

in case no one has told you your a fucking idiot nothing else needs to be said.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

idiot
idiot
idiot
idiot
idiot
idiot
idiot
idiot

lol, sue me because THEIR users hotlinked a file that I have the right to control? .. c'mon

if it be a popup or anything else is besides the point. My site, my content, my bandwidth, my say.

:: runs through the forums posting "the nazis are coming the nazis are coming" ::

wtf i'd sue! SUE WHEN YOU CAN :)

I hate myspace

Oh, that really hurts. Calling me names instead of intelligent discussion attempting to counter my points.

You really have no clue. Seriously.

I would drop them immediately, they should have at least contacted you first before making changes to your server.

DH

It's hard to have an intelligent discussion with someone who doesn't have a fucking clue... which is why no one is trying to discuss anything with you...

I think Doctor Dre's reply pretty much sums everything up. There's nothing to discuss really.

And who is your hosting company? First move from there ASAP but let us know who they are so we better watch them out next time we are looking for a host.:warning

You know what, in principal you are 110% correct. If they are going to allow their users to hotlink materials, then they need to accept that shit may happen here and there. That's my own personal feeling, but the business side of me expresses the opinions I've already written.

Admit it... You changed that file for the one and only purpose of targeting ads to MySpace users. You could have used .htaccess, but instead you decided to get a little free advertising on MySpace.

MySpace has recently come under media scrutiny for the content of their profiles not being in the best interest of underage users.... So what do you do? You pop an XXX popup and think that MySpace isn't going to care.

Hello?

not only are you an idiot anyone that does not realize your an idiot is just as dumb as you.

lets try to finnd anyone here that does not thing you an idiot.

will be hard to find idiot!

Stop it! :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I think you're confusing yourself with someone who knows what they are talking about.

drama potential ?

You truly are an idiot. MySpace had no right to go to the guys host. They could easily have blocked that url thru their software.. Instead they pulled some heavy handed tactic. They WAY overstepped their bounds.

after their(myspaces) first e-mail (stating it was a pop-up of porn to underage kids) .. I changed it to a non adult sites i.e www.freeez.net & http://youre.nu/ and they e-mailed my host and had my .swf removed again.



I changed the file because it used up 100gb of my 120gb of hosting and the month has just begun.. I could care less who was seeing it..

budz if this story is true i will offer you freehosting for this specific domain and never change your content :)

hit me up if interested no strings attached :)

you are a fuckign idiot. you should log off right now and never go online again.


to the original poster: sue your webhost.

Doctor Dre's comment about hotlinking being illegal is incorrect, in this particular case anyway.

Hotlinking for commercial gain, yes, a website could certainly have a case. Little Billy hotlinking on his MySpace profile, definitely not illegal.

Webpages are not like PDF files for instance where individual files can be saved/stolen and then presented by the false owner as their own work. When a webpage loads it can consist of the work of multiple people, and be served by the owners themselves. The actual owner of the .HTML file is not claiming ownership of the individual elements that are hotlinked.


I am done with this thread. Smart people who've been around the internet block a few times and are not just all talk know that my points have been correct.

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.

I'm curious...

If a surfer forum was linking to a movie you have on your server and it ran up your BW bill, I'm sure you would take immediate action to block them or "seek revenge". Would you not? So let's assume you put up a ******* video on your server. Its your server, you can put up whatever legal material you want, right? Well, this surfer forum doesn't like ******* near as much as GFY does, so they email your host complaining about your totally legal movie instead of taking action and correcting their wrong doing. Your host, for whatever reason, agrees with the surfer forum and they pull down your legal video without saying boo to you.

How would you respond? The surfer forum has a right to change legal content on YOUR server?

Whether hotlinking is legal or not is actually irrelevant to this case. What matters is that sites hotlinking you have no intrinsic rights to the content of files on your server, your file structure or your file naming. Unless, of course, you entered into an agreement with the hotlinkers. But that isn't the case here.

Suing implies having a lot of $$$. Especially agaisn't a big corp like myspace... The dude was most likely on a virtual host (if they toutched files on his dedicated that's even more fucked up). I doubt he have the ressources.

That's their problem... he dosen't have to know about the policies and problem of the website hotlinking him...

He's only cutting his loss, that's it and that's all. It's their problem to regulate users on their network, if they are going to do stupid shit, and they allow it (they could only allow hotlinks from a free image server they would host, and a couple other accepted sites) .

You don't go arround and change people's website because your users can't comply to your rules or are doing something illegal with your network.

I'm part of a team that runs a similar site as myspace btw (and not too small, arround 700 000 page views daily right now). We monitor what our users do... we have a report form and somebody on it all the time. Any picture added to their profiles, is on our server. We do not allow any flash/javascript because of the possible exploits. We also approve the profiles 1 by 1 so there is no spam and we also limit the ammount of messages you send daily... lots of other features to help limiting this kind of action. Normally when something like that happens it don't stay up for more then 1 hour. If they grew too fast, and didn't think about that, it's not the problem of the guy getting hotlinked. He's cutting his losses.

I understand from your posts that you are a big fan of Myspace, and probably a heavy user too... and understand their problem to regulate their users action since you read about it a lot. But it's THEIR problem, not anybody elses.

omg someone understands :)

He should not sue MySpace, but his host. MySpace are allowed to send out all the ridiculous demands they want, but his host is not allowed to harm his business without compelling legal reasons.

Actually everyone except Matt 26z understands.

Sounds to good to be true? lol

not really i want to get a myspace letter or email asking me to change some users files i really want to see them try this bullshit :)

People in this business are getting stiffed thousands of $$$ from others and they don't even sue. Not worth the trouble. Now he'd sue a host for bad business practices ? Unless you're Perfect 10, anybody telling anybody else to sue (especially when that person never sued anybody) shuld shut up.

Don't take that as an insult, it's not. It's just not worth the trouble... Unless you are a big boy, wanna make a statement or your territory.

If he has the resources, it could be well worth it. People in this industry could sue far more often than they currently do, but that doesn't mean lawsuits aren't often justified and, indeed, a reasonable step to take. The virtual nature of this business too often causes us to deal with problems in a virtual way.

Of course, creating this thread was probably a bad step if he intends to sue, and if he can't prove damages it may not be worth it either way.

How do I contact you? If you prefer not to say e-mail me budz.budz ( at ) gmail.com :thumbsup thx

I'd never sue anyone unless I really had too...

I just wanted to... , I guess vent.. lol

see sig find icq

LOL

That sucks. I would first sue your host for damaging files.. Then i would sue myspace for both harassment and for damages.

I've seen a very popular host DELETE all .htaccess files spread over 20 sites - and then send a courtest email 2 days later when the owner asked them what the fuck was going on.

*grrr

You, I will come back and respond to since you are not name calling and actually want to exchange opinions.

I think we all know that once a webhost has been notified of questionable behavior, the webhost 99% of the time is going to take action. GFY is quick to notify them of content thief's, and it is expected that the site will be removed in short order even though the webhost has nothing to do with the site itself.

In your example above, as you said, there is nothing illegal going on. I would not expect a webhost to remove content in a scenario you have described. I would be VERY upset if they did.

Let me use this example though...

Sly, lets say you run the largest surfer forum in the world (that is supposed to be family friendly) and some of your surfers hotlink a flash video from me to go in their posts. I know the hotlinking is taking place, but I don't implement .htaccess or even contact you to put a stop to what your members are doing. Instead, I modify the file to pop an XXX ad on your family friendly forum.

You, of course being the largest forum in the world, don't want to take on the massive burden of relying on your software (and the extra needed hardware) to filter out all of the people attempting to do stuff like this (nor do you want to become a SPAM hotbed for porn sites), so you nip this in the bud and go to my webhost. Right?

Well there I am, left with a hosting bill because of what your surfers started. In the end, all I had to do was implement .htaccess or contact you instead of letting it blow up into something it shouldn't have after taking justice into my own hands. Right?

i hope you switched hosts, i would not pay the bill and if its auto billed do a chargeback. thats bullshit.