JeffHarbert wrote:
In reply to Chris_V:
If you can't click on it, it's not a link. That's a pretty glaring piece of ignorance for someone trying to lecture me on how the internet works.
Uh, no. The picture is linked to (i.e it's hosted somewhere else, using that server's bandwith, by using the img src tags). It's exactly what you are complaining about, which is the point of the images you get when you try to link to a pic like that that instead come up with:
definition
Hotlinking is is direct linking to a web site’s files (images, video, etc.). An example would be using an < img > tag to display a JPEG image you found on someone else's web page so it will appear on your own site, eBay auction listing, weblog, forum message post, etc. When you right click an image's properties, like I did, and post that link inside an img tag to a forum, it is, in fact, hotlinking. That's the damn definition. It has nothing to do with the image also BEING a clickable link.
And yes, I have to lecture you on how the internet works, because apparently you have no clue. The ability to display content from one site within another is part of the original design of the Web's hypertext medium. If I go to this site:
Custom Mercury
And post this picture here:
Then it is a hotlinked picture, as i linked to the file directly:
http : // www . hotrodscustomstuff . com/Cars/Blue Merc/1950-mercury-01-03.jpg
Notice the http:// ? That makes the img tag an inline link. It's not clickable, due to not being an href tag, but it is a hypertext link nonetheless. And all links are functionally equal in HTTP.
Yes, this uses up a bit of the server's bandwidth every time someone views it. Of course, if I simply linked to the website and said "go look at the pictures there" it uses up the SAME bandwidth. In fact, it would use up more, becasue instead of loading just ONE picture, the browser would load ALL the pictures on that page at once. And if the same number of people go there that read the post, then there is MORE bandwidth being used than if I simply post ONE picture here, and only THAT picture is loaded by everyone that reads the thread.
But, the point of being able to link directly to files like that picture is to be able to do exactly that. Post one image from a site that is relevant to a conversation, rather than force everyone to go to that site and look at everything (unless they choose to do so). But that's WHY you put images on the web, or any web site: to get viewed. If you don't want it viewed, then don't put it on the web. The cost of bandwidth is simply the cost of being on the web. It's not stealing if a bunch of people are looking at your site OR your images. PERIOD. You have confused an actual cost with a theft, and they are two separate things.
The ONLY time it's STEALING is if someone takes your image and uses it as their own, as Keith described.
"The most significant legal fact about inline linking, relative to copyright law considerations, is that the inline linker does not place a copy of the image file on its own Internet server. Rather, the inline linker places a pointer on its Internet server that points to the server on which the proprietor of the image has placed the image file."
This means that what you proposed in your first post actually can violate copyright law, whereas simply linking to the file directly does not, as you are not delivering a copy, but linking directly to the original.
Oh, and here;s what shows up when you do search for "hong beer pic"
Holy crap, it worked! I'm linking pictures for EVERYTHING now! 
meh...mines pretty good!
Skimpy lederhosen
