Why You Shouldn’t Hotlink Images
A lot of people like to take the content on this site and post it on their own site. Why someone would do this rather than just post an excerpt and link to my script is beyond me, but people seem to do it a lot.
There’s not much I can do about it besides hate you, but every so often a world-class idiot will include the image at the top of the script as well. This is called hotlinking, and it sucks.
It sucks because I have to pay for the bandwidth. When you download a page, an image, or anything else from the-editing-room.com, it is using bandwidth that I pay for. So if you take the script only, the text comes from YOUR server, but if what you pull includes an image tag that points to the image on my server, then everyone who goes to your site also pegs my server to download the image. This is obnoxious behavior.
It’s also remarkably dumb, and here’s why: I can move files around on my server, since it’s my server. This means that when you link to an image on my site, I can change the image on the server so that it’s a picture of something else, and now when people go to your site, they see this new image.
Keep reading for a demonstration (WARNING: NSFW and GROSS)
This is the site of a guy who hotlinked my image, as I found it:
And here it is after changing the image:
So the moral is: I’d rather you not copy entire scripts from this site to post on your own, but if you’re going to do it, don’t be an idiot about it.
Sue them Rod. Sue them !!!!!!!
September 20th, 2007 at 10:16 amThat was the best part of Ghost Rider.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:39 amServes them right.
Although, I can totally see you having that image hotlinked more than the original one.
September 20th, 2007 at 11:10 amI am totally watching Ghost Rider the entire way through now instead of falling asleep.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:06 pmDear God, is that goatse?! Why couldn’t you have just said “I replaced the image with goatse” or something… or at least “click here to view.” All my Internet life I’ve successfully avoided actually SEEING that thing, and now… my EYES!!! CURSE YOU, ROD HILTON!
September 20th, 2007 at 3:21 pmWhat has been seen… Cannot be Un-seen.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:57 pmSaber: Just don’t look for tubgirl or lemonparty now, too.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:04 pmThe air0day, they do nothing!
September 21st, 2007 at 4:02 amHotlinking is also pointless - just download the image to your desktop as a jpg, and then rename it whatever you want and upload it to your own server. Or to facebook, or to photobucket, or wherever and use that link instead. It requires barely any effort whatsoever.
September 21st, 2007 at 8:35 amDon’t look for lemonparty? Who doesn’t like lemonparty?
(But yeah avoid tubgirl.)
September 21st, 2007 at 8:36 amThat is the best Nicholas Cage performance of all time. This is the scene where he went all out and really gave 100% for the movie.
I hope he wins an Oscar for it. He already has the perfect place to display it.
www.therecshow.com
September 21st, 2007 at 10:13 amYeah you don’t remember it? It was just after Nic Cage crashes the ambulance and is all ‘They’re in my eyes, my eyes!’ Boom, there it appears. Very intellectual when viewed in context, I assure you, and I applaud the filmmakers for their boundless use of metaphor.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:42 ami lol’d
September 22nd, 2007 at 8:46 pmRod;
Attempting to sue the folks doing this to you would probably yield little, but keep switching them up with those nasty pics–eventually they’ll get the message!
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:48 amBandwidth leeches suck.
Go ROD! WOOOOOO!
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:05 pmPoint well taken, Rod, but you need a stronger vocabulary. “Gross” is when a little kid picks up used chewing gum off the street and sticks it in his mouth. A guy opening up his own asshole way beyond what I would have guessed to be the breaking point is in the “vile, repugnant shit that you do NOT want to see under any circumstances” category. I might have preferred to sit through 90 minutes of Epic Movie.
September 24th, 2007 at 1:01 pmhaha that wus funny, do it all the time
September 24th, 2007 at 2:27 pmShit! that must be the Directors cut version of Ghostrider! :D
September 26th, 2007 at 11:42 pmWhere did you get that symbolic picture of cage’s acting skills Ron?
By the way, you may already know about this, Rod, but there are easier ways to prevent image hotlinking, or even replace hotlinked images with custom ones by modifying your htaccess (try Googling “hotlinking htaccess”). Of course, there are drawbacks if in some cases you actually DO want to be able to hotlink images… but anyway, just thought I’d throw that out there.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:06 amI was saddened to see that picture of that guy’s stretched asshole on your site. I thought I had successfully put it out of my mind but now it’s as good as new again.
You could’ve taught those hotlinking people just as potent a lesson by merely showing an picture of some porno star getting DP’d or something. That’s not quite as bad, is it?
September 28th, 2007 at 11:29 pmI think a good follow up article would be “Why you shouldn’t display goatse on your website.” Basically an extended apology is what I’m looking for, but I’m not holding my breath.
I mean jesus dude, you took Saber-Scorpion’s internet virginity… aren’t you a little bit ashamed?
September 29th, 2007 at 9:44 amSomeday you will all learn to appreciate the great art of hole-stretching! You’ll see!
September 29th, 2007 at 10:09 amRod, there are a couple of techniques to prevent hotlinking. Some are built into the server itself, basically it check to see if the referer is the server or somewhere else, if its the server send the image, if not send goatse image. You may want to check with your provider to see if this can be done. That way you don’t have to move your files around anymore. Just a thought…..
October 16th, 2007 at 8:11 pmOh GOD! Think I went blind there for a few seconds
November 8th, 2007 at 3:28 pmI neve actually knew that and am sorry to say I am guilty of it in one instance, however not from this site.
Question, if you copy the actual image from the site to your PC and then upload the image yourself but still provide an “a href” link to the original site this surely wouldn’t effect their bandwidth but still give them the credit for the image?
January 7th, 2008 at 6:57 amThat caption went PERFECTLY with goatse.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:24 pmor, if you were smart, you could just use a HTACCESS file to prevent hotlinking of images altogether
April 6th, 2008 at 7:47 pmThank god my screen size is at 1600×1200, otherwise I might have been able to actually SEE that nasty picture.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:14 amGoddamn it I avoided seeing goatse and now that image is burnt into my retinas.
April 29th, 2008 at 6:16 pmAll you babies whining about seeing goatse need to grow up. It’s not even ‘2 girls 1 cup’ nasty, and I’ve unwittingly been subjected to worse than *that*. Leave Rod alone, it’s not like he pulled something from rotten.com and slapped it on here…
May 8th, 2008 at 3:43 pm