is hotlinking to images on other sites illegal?

[jeff]

Hi,

I've done a search on the internet, and a few webmasters seem to think that it is. However, from reading their pages, they come across as angry individuals having a rant rather than guys who know what they're talking about.

So... does anyone with legal experience know the answer to this? A lot of my bandwidth is being taken up with those image searches on MSN and Google, though I'm not really complaining (yet!).

Regards,

[webmasterneo]

If you disallow it on your Site Policy, and explicitly say so, then that would be illegal, and you can now do something about it.

Your problem on bandwidth being taken up by search engines could be solved by an exclusion via your robots.txt file. I think Google has an option under Webmaster Tools if you'd prefer that they do not crawl your site for images.

[Cameron]

Hotlinking is illegal in some countries and is not a good idea. If you hotlink, Then you may be in big trouble, So if you really want an image just go and ask for it

[ejlmp]

A Webmaster for a Seattle based internet hardware company lifted one of my photos of the Golden Gate Bridge from my Golden Gate Bridge Photography Web page. I had no knowledge of this copyright theft until the thief had the hutzbah to write me back via Email to tell me how I should adjust the html on my page so that the photo he confessed to have lifted would show better on my Web page. The thief although he thought he was being helpful didn't even thank me for providing a photo worthy of theft. I was both flattered for it was the first time that one of my photos was deemed fine enough to steal and irritated for this thief to tell me how to improve to make my photos even more valuble for annonymous thieves. But, this one was so proud of being able to tell me of his method for Website improvement, he just had to break his cover and give the URL of his Web site where my stolen photo resides on his site. This happened 10 years ago. I wrote back thanking him for the advice and informed him of my rate for displaying photos stolen compared to photos where permission is asked for before being lifted. The internet tool they were developing used the word "bridge" as part of the name of the product. They delayed first to remove my photo, but probably the company legal department probably explained copyright conventions. I haven't searched latelly for the site to see whether they found ethics. The URL of my site is:
<http://home.earthlink.net/~ejlmp/Golden_Gate_Bridge_Photo.html>
There are links at the page bottom to my other Web sites. Enjoy.
Eric

[darkAngel]

I think if they provide the url to original owner, then the owner might not mind it so much. Usually, the hotlinker use the images as their own.

[hachi]

logical thinking, yes . it's wrong. not only you abuse someone else bandwith, you're also that damn lazy on uploading the picture yourself. unless web owner allow us to do so ..

[Dartz]

If you want to hotlink, its best to check with the owner of the website, as it steals their bandwidth while you get the hits.

If you want to be safe, upload it to your own server or put it on imageshack.

[jgrant]

If it is Copyrighted, yes. Copyrighted work is any made after the year 1989 (I am pretty sure.) It doesn't have to have a copyright symbol, either.
So, if you aren't sure, Email the person asking if it is copyrighted. You are allowed to hotlink, unless they ask not to, or say it is copyright.