Unauthorized Image Linking/Embedding

It is often considered bad form to use someone else's images in an eBay auction and TCers here have voiced their opinions about it; I frown on people using my original backdrops and patterns from Tikiroom.com on their sites without asking me first (and frankly I don't give them permission when they do ask); and recently Captain Scully's work was lifted and used on a website without his permission, which he then asked the user to change.

While most of the images posted on Tiki Central are posted by the photographers themselves, there is also quite a bit of unauthorized image linking that goes on here. It leaves the burden of image delivery and bandwidth on the servers of the original image, and Tiki Central doesn't have to store the image or even serve it to users. This is often called "bandwidth stealing". Tiki Central is not a top-tier website as far as traffic goes, but we're not small potatoes either, so the bandwidth that we're stealing is not entirely insignificant. In fact TC has often temporarily killed geocities and tripod websites due to unauthorized image linking.

I wanted to post about this and get people's thoughts because TC as a community have been on both sides of it. We've expressed our annoyance at people lifting our images for eBay auctions and other uses without permission, but we've also turned around and lifted other people's images in order to make informative Tiki posts, as well as quite a bit of unrelated humor and commentary posts.

What's the right balance? Is this something we should be worried about? Why is it frowned upon for eBay auctions but not in TC posts? Should we worry about impacting other people's servers with extra traffic? If we don't want our images lifted without our permission, should we be doing it here? Should we try to minimize it to when it is tiki-related or considered necessary?

I am interested in your thoughts.

PS, I'm not talking about actual copyright issues of the images themselves*. I'm just talking about the issue of linking (using the [img] tag) to images on other websites without asking for permission.

*yet

On 2005-07-30 02:42, hanford_lemoore wrote:
What's the right balance? Is this something we should be worried about? Why is it frowned upon for eBay auctions but not in TC posts?

Yes, I firmly beleive this is something we should be worried about, and deserves attention.

I also beleive that the majority of TCers are using images in a sensitive and thoughtful manner. I also beleive most people feel it is okay for this to occur on TC, in this appropriate manner. As evidence, I present the commonality of its occurance.

However, there are a small minority that are not doing this appropriately (which prompted this topic). The thronging masses keep the naughty people in check as a general rule. However, this does not mean that attention should not be focused upon this, to address it 'officially'.

It is not right to use other peoples images and present them as your own, on TC or elsewhere. I mean legally, not just ethically (these are different).

As for Ebay usage of other peoples images (as well as on a personal or business website, particularly where someone is trying to sell stuff), I feel it is different to posting on TC. I believe it is highly immoral for people to use other peoples images in order to market their own work and make money for themselves (which, lets face it, is the aim when you are selling stuff), without permission. If the original owner says "go ahead", yeah, no problem. Otherwise, no go.

Everyone laughs at me because I am different. I laugh at everyone else because they are all the same.

[ Edited by: hewey 2005-07-30 03:19 ]

On 2005-07-30 02:42, hanford_lemoore wrote:
I'm just talking about the issue of linking (using the [img] tag) to images on other websites without asking for permission.

I always thought the wonderful thing about the WWW was the ability to link across the globe like a wonderful Jewelled web of knowledge (but obviously that was before people would be slashdotted to death), i think its just a case of manners, if your going to link to an external picture ask permission or knick it and stick it on your own web server (remember to credit the original)and take the bandwidth hit and in the case of eBay pictures instead of posting a link to the image put up the eBay link so the seller gets increased traffic and possibly an extra sale.

The problem with linking to an external picture is that the "owner" can change the image, like when this emo-kid linked to one of the backgrounds i gave away free on my website and didn't credit me, so i changed it from a cute skull to black tile saying "F-ck Emo-kids".

You can post pictures on TC now? :D
Well, being the biggest picture dork on TC, I try to use my ISP, but once in a while I will get lazy (bad excuse) and direct link a pic for some stupid antic. I have always been concerned that Hanford may receive a complaint about direct linking a pic from someone. I will be using my ISP 100% for now on to avoid this from ever happening.
Direct linking for profit is a major step over the line though.

If they are taking an image or artwok and calling it their own, or taking someone's website and using it as their template they should be stopped. Ironically, I found this forum while researching who was "hotlinking" from my site. One user (who no longer posts here) was using one of my images in their signature. I have posted silly photos on this forum from my own site as well as other people's sites, so I'd be a hypocrite to say it was wrong. But to blatently take someone's images/artwork/design without permission for personal sale, logo or commercial use is criminal.

I think that whatever Hanford is talking about (?) should apply to everyone except me.

Personal use = GOOD
Commercial use with out permission = BAD!!!!!!!

uh oh, I better delete some images...

Bandwidth stealing is bad. Not to say I havent dont it once in a very blue moon when I am unable to upload the pic to my own server and need to show it... but 99.999 percent of the time I take it and upload it to tikifish.com.

How can you tell if someone is linking to someone elses pic (except when you see a 'bandwidth exceeded' pic?) Seems like a pretty tough thing to continually police. Would tak an awful lot of time. And there's enough asshattery on TC these days without having to check image sources on top of everything!

So let this thread be the news, and hopefully most people will see it, and think twice before they link to someone elses site without permission...

That's my 2 kilobytes wirth....

Here is a good list of FAQ's of hyperlinking.

Thanks for posting the link to that FAQ, Unga. It's worth pointing out that that FAQ states that hyperlinking (putting a link on one website that goes to another website) is legally protected, but the legality of using images from another server than your own (that's what we're discussing here) has not been settled.

Aside from the legality issue, and aside from the copyright issue, it's just bad manners to use someone else's bandwidth, whether it's being done to sell something or not doesn't really matter to the person whose bandwidth is being filched. Even for those who aren't impacted by their allotted bandwidth being pilfered (those with unlimited bandwidth accounts) are impacted when it skews their traffic logs -- every time we view one of their images, that other server can think its website is being viewed, and it gives a false impression of what their audience is really like.

Much like swearing around children, I'm going to have to be careful to remind myself not to do it!

On 2005-07-30 05:07, atomictonytiki wrote:
The problem with linking to an external picture is that the "owner" can change the image

This happened to me recently -- I posted a photo of something innocuous that ended up displaying something completely different (porn). (Hanford, I hope that's not what brought on this thread!)

On 2005-07-31 05:03, tikifish wrote:
And there's enough asshattery on TC these days without having to check image sources on top of everything!

Asshattery.

Milk shootin' outta my nose!

This happened to me recently -- I posted a photo of something innocuous that ended up displaying something completely different (porn). (Hanford, I hope that's not what brought on this thread!)

A guy did this to me (from my website) for an Ebay auction. At first I was mad but I just got even. I changed the picture to some nice S & M porn which ran the whole week of the auction. Plus, some embedded text discussing the sexual tendencies of the seller and his mother and threats to kill and eat the high bidder. Hee hee!

On 2005-08-01 19:36, pappythesailor wrote:
and threats to kill and eat the high bidder. Hee hee!

OK, now you're scaring me.

Something like this?

New to this computer stuff. It's hard to learn the language and it's meaning. So this is a no no??

After the Pineapple Wedding at Tiki Oasis 3, Otto liked our Oasis/Wedding picture website so much, he included it in his Tiki News email, and We could not figure out why our friends and family were so damn interested in our wedding pictures and kept crashing TikiBot's web site....

is this what you guys are talking about?

mrs. pineapple