This is the reason I initially started using Flickr to post my photographs - at least when my photos get hijacked (without permission, which is stupid, since I've never told anyone “no” who bothered to ask), I don't have to pay bandwidth costs myself. Some netizens are unclear about the concept of deep linking, either through ignorance, or through lack of moral fiber. Regardless, there are two image thieves I planned on zapping, instead I think I'm going to post part of the ruling on top of the image.
Boing Boing: Texas court says deep-linking is copyright infringement Out-Law.com reports that the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas found a website owner guilty of copyright infringement for linking to an another website's audio file without permission.[Robert Davis, who runs Supercrosslive.com] argued that he did not actually copy any material, he only provided a link to it which opened the material in a user's media player, but the court ruled that that link broke the law.
“The court finds that the unauthorized 'link' to the live webcasts that Davis provides on his website would likely qualify as a copied display or performance of SFX’s copyrightable material,” said Lindsay. “The court also finds that the link Davis provides on his website is not a 'fair use' of copyright material as Davis asserts through his Answer.”
Really, I have given permission for dozens of my images to be posted elsewhere, I post the majority of my work at Flickr with a Creative Commons license (attribution - ShareAlike), so why are you stealing my bandwidth? MoFos!
More details on the ruling here
hmmm. i hear you: "stealing" bandwidth is not cool, but i'm not sure i like this ruling all the same. feels a little chilly to me (as in, "chilling effects"). as long as one provides attribution (and preferably, a link back), i don't see why it's not a positive thing for the original "content holder/creator." (not that the scenario i just described is necessarily the case in this, um, case.)
at any rate, i was pleased to see that you cc'd your photo on imeem, long as i provided attribution. i was glad to find it and use it, and i was glad to see that you seemed glad to see that! it'll be a shame for us all if people keep locking their things up.
w&w, I agree actually. Disney and others are trying to ruin the art world by holding on to copyright long after they should be able to. I'm not in that camp, and I can see how this ruling can be applied in the corporate oligarchies favor. I mean, really, how much of a blog like mine is original content anyway? Don't want that to dry up totally, just used the ruling as a jumping off point to rant a bit.