Hotlinking Images

1. 43

   Writer Foxposted 10 years ago

   I found a few sites today which are hotlinking to my images.  Should I just file a normal DMCA or can the staff block it? 
   
   Thing is, if they are linking to mine then they are probably linking to other HP images, too.

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   1. 72

      Matthew Meyerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      If you believe that a site is using your copyrighted material without your permission then a DMCA notice of infringement may be the appropriate action.
      
      We cannot issue such claims as you own the copyrighted material in your Hubs.

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      1. 43

         Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I know that, Matthew.  But they aren't just copying my images, they are hotlinking to the file on http://s2.hubimg.com.  Do the engineers want to know about it?  It costs money for server time when someone does that.

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   2. 67

      lisavollrathposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      With hotlinked images, it's faster to just delete the original image file, and reupload it under a different name. It has the extra satisfaction of leaving broken images on the site that's hotlinking.

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2. 61

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   Writer Fox: I clicked on the link you gave and got a empty page with  403 Forbidden.

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   1. 43

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      That's because I didn't give the whole URL.  The engineers will know what that means.
      
      Each of your images is hosted on that URL on a different server. If you right click on any image on HP and copy the URL, it will be on that domain.
      
      Here's a complete URL for one of my images:
      http://s1.hubimg.com/u/8441770_f520.jpg
      
      That image is on one of my Hubs.  When the Hub loads, the image is called up from that server.

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   2. 0

      calculus-geometryposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      That just means HP restricted access to the directory root. All the images contained on s2.hubimg.com in the subdirectory /u/ are accessible, for example, this totally random one http://s2.hubimg.com/u/7654321.jpg.  That's what another site is hotlinking to.  If HP added a few lines to the htaccess file, they could prevent the images from being hotlinked by sites other than hubpages.com.
      
      This is a code generator for it, if anyone with their own sites is interested
      http://www.htaccesstools.com/hotlink-protection/

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      1. 43

         Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks Calculus, you explained it better than I did.  I thought the engineering department would want to know because the site is probably linking to more HP images than just mine.  It's linking to about 25 of mine!

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3. 61

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   I had no idea.  Okay, how do we know our images are being copied and hotlinked?

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   1. 43

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Linda, you can search from this site:
      https://www.tineye.com/
      
      Or, go to Google's image search, click the camera icon under the search box, and insert the URL of your image in the search box or upload the image from your computer.
      
      This is only important if you have original images or artwork and you own the copyright.  If you are using images from Wikipedia, etc., don't bother.

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4. 61

   LindaSmith1posted 10 years ago

   Thanks Writer Fox

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   1. 43

      Writer Foxposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      You're welcome.  I think I'll probably email the team anyway since it doesn't look like Matthew is coming back to this thread to see the problem.

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      1. 87

         Marisa Wrightposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         WF, you sound like you're familiar with how this works, you may be able to add more weight to this thread which was started several months ago:
         
         http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/119294

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5. 87

   Marisa Wrightposted 10 years ago

   This would be worth creating a thread about Hotlink prevention in Feature Suggestions

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