Shh!  No one tell Jim but I've hotlinked to that one...

Lovely shot, Jim. No wonder some turd wanted to steal it.

Heh. A webmaster caled Jason Scott had a nice graphic on his own site
that a bunch of people hot-linked to on their MySpace pages, etc.
He discovered the theft when he checked his server logs to find out
why his bandwidth was maxed out. His solution was similar to yours,
except that instead of replacing the image with a notice like yours,
he used the infamous goatse.cs photo:

He discovers the hotlinking, & someone suggests that he goatse them:
<http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000255.html>

He decides to do exactly that, with hilarious results:
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000278.html

He too, was deluged with clueless idiots claiming that not only was it
perfectly legal & moral for people to steal his bandwidth & server
space for their own use, but that replacing it with the goatse image
to screw them up was "hacking their site", & illegal, etc:

<http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000279.html>

Ahh, but I do, and the terms of service are plainly spelled out in the
site that she was blogging to.

Again if the site had a simple way to communicate it I would have
simply asked that it be taken down, but I'm not going to fuss with an
hour of aggravation when I can be nasty and make a very clear point.

Ironically, if she would have asked I would have given it to be used,
with a photo credit.

I donate a great deal of time and images to the local animal shelter
and a local wildlife rehabilitation center.

Still Grumpy, Jim

Yes, google does warn about copyright.  When you click on an image in a
google image search, you'll see this message, "Image may be scaled down
and subject to copyright."

Off topic.  Just rebutting Douglas' accusation.

Every time Douglas posts this claim, I ask him to PROVE that I, or
anyone, 'stole' his images for something other than 'fair use'.  Unlike
Jim, he has failed to do so.

I REPOSTED his images after he had *withdrawn* his own images/pages in
which he:
- made outlandish and untrue claims about his mythical enlarging
algorithm that 'creates new detail' (his words).
- fudged enlarging mathematics and claimed that images had been
enlarged when they had not
- claimed he had developed a new program that corrected perspective,
when in fact the sample showed he had simply (and poorly) cloned parts
of the image
- blamed a camera for wrongly exposing his images, when the EXIF data
showed he had screwed up the settings, eg reposted here:
http://www.geocities.com/chrlzs/flinders-20D.htm
Note that he blames the camera for underexposing, and suggests his FZ20
is far superior - but *he* chose to use partial spot-metering on some
guys white pants at a beach, and then he wonders why it looks a bit
underexposed.  Sigh.

That example page was posted for just a few days by Douglas, then
cowardly withdrawn when numerous folk pointed out Douglas' incompetence
from his own EXIF data and histogram.  I think that sort of behaviour
stinks, and he should be more than a mouse and simply admit when he
makes errors.  I claim 'fair use'!!

And I'll do this sort of reposting *again*, if/when he tries it on
again.  Call it a public service, just like Google's caching, or the
wayback machine..  You can argue to your heart's content about how it
might be some sort of technical 'theft', but there is a simple moral
lesson here - don't post bullshit and then hide it and pretend it never
happened.

Someone has to keep the Douglases of our world honest.  For what it is
worth, pretty well all of my previously posted images are still up,
andf I am happy to repost anything from any thread.  Try that with
Douglas, and you will face stony silence, especially if it is one of
his embarrassing faux pas..

So, Douglas, feel free to keep bringing this up, and I'll keep
reposting the rebuttal.

Isn't he a lovely man?  (O;  Did he kiss his mother with that mouth?

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