Please read link

[Black wallnut]

http://www.bt3central.com/announcement.php?a=15

Please review the linked announcement. It is simply a matter of fairness.

[BobSch]

Good point and I'm ashamed to say, I've probably been guilty of doing that.

[chopnhack]

I dare ask for the lay man's explanation BW? What exactly do you mean by hotlinking? If I click on weblink and paste in the url is that not sufficient?? Thanks

[Black wallnut]

For fear of being banned, I dare ask for the lay man's explanation BW? What exactly do you mean by hotlinking? If I click on weblink and paste in the url is that not sufficient?? Thanks

Hotlinking is inline posting of an image not stored on this site for example:



url for image is http://blackwalnutjigs.com/images/mymagbasket.JPG

[chopnhack]

I understand now, I figured since you could copy link location you were not censoring the location and thus did not need to also explicitly include it.

[sweensdv]

...... I figured since you could copy link location you were not censoring the location and thus did not need to also explicitly include it.

I agree. Unless someone is actually claiming to have made something that they didn't I don't see what the fuss is all about. If everyone here were to reference the source for every fact or picture in a thread this place would be nothing but a huge footnote with little original content.

[Black wallnut]

3 issues here:

• copyright
• bandwidth
• fairness

You may argue the last. The first two are black and white.

[dbhost]

Okay now I must admit to a little confusion here as well... I thought the intent was to comply with copyright law. But your linked doc states that any hotlinked image that you do not host. I personally do not host any images that are publicly available, I use a third party host but I retain copyright on my images. So do I still need to provide the URL?

Example, my clam shell cabinets...



Versus my clam shell cabinets with cited URL.

Source:http://inlinethumb19.webshots.com/48...600x600Q85.jpg

However if I am linking to someone else's image such as the one below, I should ALWAYS include a citation.

Source: http://inlinethumb50.webshots.com/46...600x600Q85.jpg

I would think that if you are the creator / copyright owner of the image, then we wouldn't need a source citation to comply with copyright. Am I missing the point?

[Black wallnut]

Dave (dbhost) you're reading too much into this. The issue is if you do not own the images or the copyright on the written words then you need to cite the source. So in you example where you use a third party to host your images then there is no need to also provide a link.

Where this issue has come up is when a member finds an image elsewhere and then posts it inline in a post without permission (and I know because I asked the owner of the image when this has happened) or source and further uses the image owners bandwidth to display it here then there are two wrongs. Hotlinking an image is afaik not a clear cut can or can not case, however it is theft of bandwidth and without citation is likely copyright infringement. Intent is not always an element of a crime so even though a members intention may not be to violate copyyright or steal bandwith the intent may not matter. I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night. What I do know is with my website hosting plan I do have a bandwidth limit, I've had my copyrighted writtings copy/pasted into another's forum without citation, and I believe in fairness. As a website owner I can change what image is associated with a given filename. This is a practise that some use to prevent bandwidth theft. There are also ways that I can prevent hotlinking, Photobucket uses these methods as do some other image hosting providers.

Folks this really is just a matter of good manners. Much of what gets posted on this forum is origional materal by our members. In Dave's third example I would add a line that fellow member Pappy is the source as well as shoot Pappy an email or PM and ask for permission to use it. It may be just as simple to post a link. For the written word if you did not author it do not post it without quotation marks and a source. If you do not know the source take the time to Google search the first three sentences to find the source, if it is Anon then say so.

[dbhost]

Thanks for clearing that up!

I intentionally picked Pappy's image because it would be known here, and he uses the same photo host as I do, with no bandwidth limits...

Never mind the bit about the Holiday Inn Express... You got me laughing there...

[chopnhack]

To further clarify, would it be better then to copy the image, host it on your own via photobucket or other source, link to that image with original source? That would certainly take care of the bandwidth issue, no?

[Black wallnut]

To further clarify, would it be better then to copy the image, host it on your own via photobucket or other source, link to that image with original source? That would certainly take care of the bandwidth issue, no?

It is my opinion that if you do not own the image or have express permission to just link to it, i.e. post the URL of the image. However grabbing the image and paying or otherwise using your account to host it and then posting it inline does take care of any bandwidth issues as long as your image host does not prohibit hotlinking to them, and many do. Above all cite the source.

[Black wallnut]

By the way in my previous example post #4 above I normally will not cite the source because I am both the owner and host of the image. All the other images stored on my site are either mine or I have written permission to use them, well at least I did at one time three or four computers ago.

By the way I give all members of this site express permission to hot link to any images on my site to use in a post on BT3Central as long as the image is accompanied with a simple statement attributing the work to me.

[dbhost]

To further clarify, would it be better then to copy the image, host it on your own via photobucket or other source, link to that image with original source? That would certainly take care of the bandwidth issue, no?

That would be a direct violation of copyright law. I will give a real life example.

I have a photo, hosted on another forum, of my shop from early on, showing my old Ryobi R161 router, and Wolfcraft router table in my garage. This past spring while doing my CL perusing, I noticed an ad for a Ryobi R161, so I went to it, and lo and behold my photo was there. I sent an email to Craigslist demanding a DMCA takedown of the offending photo. They dropped the ad within 20 minutes never to be seen or heard from again...

Linking or embedding to non owned images or text without attribution is where the issue is. Bandwidth considerations simply compound the problem...

While not legally authoritative, look at the Wikipedia article on the subject of hotlinking.

Generally speaking, and not in ANY official capacity of BT3Central am I speaking here, but rather in terms of basic internet etiquette, linking, with attribution, especially from an image hosting site such as flickr, webshots, or other such site where there is no bandwidth limitation, and the user expects their images to be used / accessed / shared, is fine, but copying the image and hosting it elsewhere as if it were your own is not.

Likewise, if you are sharing images on a photo sharing site such as the above mentioned, you have through the terms of service to that site, given your prior approval for the linking of your images. If you do not like somebody else linking to your images, do not host your images there, but rather one that has means in place to specifically block hotlinking.

I typically post up photos or other works such as sketchup drawings that I created, OR I post with citation. If I have say for example an image from another forum. Lets say blockheads.com (if there is a real forum called blockheads.com, I am sorry, I just pulled the name out of thin air...) and a user blockyboy that has a cool project I want to link to, but the terms of service do not expressly make the user grant permission for the linking or sharing of images, and say I wanted to link to http://www.blockheads.com/galleries/...lathestand.jpg I would have to go to the site, and send blockyboy a PM requesting permission to hot link to his image. Again the difference is in the terms of service. Did the user / owner / creator already grant blanket permission via the TOS, or do I need to specifically seek that permission?

If I ever omit citation for non owned images, Please let me know via PM.... I do not mean to and want to keep this straight...

As far as the official stance of BT3Central, I will defer to Mark and Sam and let them state the policy...

[sweensdv]

Yippee, so then does this mean no more links to craigslist ads unless the poster is the one who put the ad up on craigslist in the first place? What about images from manufacturers websites, a no no without permission from them?

I can't recall this issue coming up on any of the other Forums that I visit so again, I don't see what all the fuss is about.