Do you think hotlinking should be illegal?
 

I can't find a reference stating hotlinking is illegal. Sure, it pisses people off but the question here is... do you think it is or should be against the law somewhere? Do you feel it's like RSS feeds... where if people don't protect themselves (remove rss, put up htaccess to stop hotlinking) it's fair game?

When you think about this, think about the entire internet and not just adult.

Essentially you are stealing someone else's bandwidth that they have to pay for. So it would be the same as an illegal hook up for gas, water, electric, etc.

You decide chief.

Illegal but thats my opinion:2 cents:

depends, people can hotlink our tshirt shoot galleries if wanted without a problem. For others its a diffrent story though.

that's tough.. if it were illegal, how would a company say it was 'ok'?

isn't posting pictures in here considered hotlinking too?

Yes, it should be illegal. In fact, I believe all hypertext links and any form of linking on the web should be illegal.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Funny topic on a board with the highest rate of hotlinked google images lol.

Sure hotlinking is bad but IMHO anyone who doesn't protect their content has it coming.

Its wrong to hotlink without permission because its stealing (some sites do allow it tho). But I don't think the that Internet police are going to go knocking on anyone's door.

:winkwink::winkwink::winkwink:

Learn how to use mod_rewrite to block hotlinking and then it's a non issue. :)

Frowned upon but no need to make illegal since its pretty easy top stop most of it.

Its pretty easy to protect yourself. I'm not really fond of laws when people should be able to communicate with one another and handle the problem, unfortunately this doesn't exactly work.

"Please stop hotlinking my images." "No problem! Sorry for any troubles."

Hotlinking for commercial gain should be illegal unless the file owner explicitly permits it.

I've also got a problem with webmasters who use RSS feeds as the only content on their sites and then put ads around them. That is not a good faith use of RSS feeds. It's piggybacking off someone elses work, and you are a joke of a webmaster.

Yea try that with porn forums in Asia. If you can even view the websites characters to find the right email address to contact.

Should be illegal, youre stealing bandwidth from somone. And big sites can easily shut down little sites and screw them on overage by hotlinking their pics. Can get their account suspended too. Then theyre losing money. Like shutting down their business, they lose income.

Itll be illegal once the laws catch up. Of course, like piracy, it wont be enforceable in all areas of the world.

its basicly stealing of bandwidth for your own purposes
but conisdering that everyone who has problem with that can very easiliy protect him self, i dont think we need a law for that