I really don't understand why people prevent hotlinking. It's FREE advertising. Especially inside an SWF...you realize you could place an ad on his site for FREE. An SWF is a great file format...you can make a great flash that will advertise your site and even be a link. Just change the SWF on your site by renaming it and create a new one under the old name.

When you have lemons...make lemonade.

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Stealing my images is not free advertising, it is leeching

The people viewing your images on another site don't know (or care) what site they are from...They just see the images. You're thinking that we're talking about people hotlinking your advertising banners...99% of the time, that's not the case. 99% of the time, they hotlink images to share to their visitors - without giving you any credit...and all that does is chew up *your* bandwidth.

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...some super-sweet signature

I agree with Ryan - it is leeching.

but people not wanting this to happen should enable hotlink protection, and you wont need to worry about this.

I don't enable the hotlink protection though, as i link my avatar & signature images from my sites forum

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Immortality will come to such as are fit for it

For one..Google image search is HUGE...and can certainly bring in traffic. Also we are discussing an SWF which is a LOT more than just an image.

If you are against leeching fine...that's your choice but don't convince others that there are no benefits for the site being leeched from because clearly there are benefits.

I get a LOT of traffic from Google Image Search and it does pay.

Don't presume I am a noob simply becuase I am new here. Don't tell me what I am thinking. Most of the time when people leech it's simple images like a picture in a gallery or even a post attachment....heck even avatars and signatures are leeched quite frequently.

If you can't afford the bandwidth and feel that the extra 20-100mb a day is killing you then fine...hotlink protect yourself. If you were to really count how much BW is being "leeched" you would see that most of the time is minimal.

I gave you precise instruction on how to benefit from the SWF leecher...if you think you know everything then congrats and goodluck.

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20-100mb is your own bandwith, you're paying for it, not anyone else and it might be alot more than that if you run a big board.

Leeching does not get alot of traffic to your board, as the image would be placed on there site, you'll only get some traffic if they actually right click on the image, and see the image location.

Why do you think people leech? as you say, its only 20-100mb a day...

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Immortality will come to such as are fit for it

WTF...did you not read my post at all.

Hey don't sweat it..I was just trying to educate some misguided people but clearly you have your own ideas.

Goodluck on that.

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Thanks for the Goodluck, its much gladly welcomed, although i don't know what your wishing me luck on, could you elaborate?

How can someone be misguided about Leeching, its wrong, and shouldn't be done without the owners permission.

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Immortality will come to such as are fit for it

We disagree..I don't see a point in saying more than I already have explained.

The goodluck is to you and your attitude toward leeching.

Prove to me it's wrong and I will change my mind. Show me what law is broken. I certainly have proved to you how it's a benefit yet you have not done anything but say "it's wrong"...blah blah...prove to me it's wrong.

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Ah well, in that case, i don't want your luck regarding this matter,

Show me where i said it brakes any law, its wrong, doesn't mean it breaks the law...Its something a half decent forum owner/webmaster wouldn't do.

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Immortality will come to such as are fit for it

Well then it's rude according to your definition. Wrong implies a stronger meaning.

Ruan called it stealing and you agreed with him. That's why I got the impression you think it's illegal or somehow wrong.

Explain wrong to me and how you define it. Because you wouldn't do something that makes it wrong? So is every person that posts a youtube video on their site "wrong"? leeching is truly an actual thing but to imply it's wrong in some way is misguided. Rude would be how I would best place it. It's just poor etiquette. Yet it's done everyday by millions of forum posters whenever they use img bbcode tags. Some businesses have emerged from leeching such as imageshack.us.

I have explained actual benefits from having your images leeched. Other than bandwidth which in most cases are insignificant you have yet to explain what's "wrong" with leeching.

btw...you realize by removing hot linking you are encouraging a worse offense...which is straight up copyright infringement. There is nothing stopping a person from downloading your content and hosting it themselves or on an image hosting provider. If that occurs...you will never know nor recieve ANY benefit from that.

So to summarize..I have outlined negatives to hotlink protection and I have outlined positives from leeching.

Let's hear your well thought out argument.

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