ccDan - 3:48 am on May 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

That's a definite no-no, especially without permission.

Theft of bandwidth.

Some web hosts will change the URL to their graphic, while others will replace the graphic. I have heard of people that will replace such "borrowed" graphics with a pornographic image. So, overnight, your own web site becomes a porn site.

Myself, I either change the URL, or replace them with a "stolen image" graphic with an ad for my widgets.

Some people use such "borrowed" graphics for their icons or signatures on web forums. When that happens, you replace those with huge graphics so that it really screws up load times for the forums. If the user doesn't repent, the web forum host will generally do something about it. ;-)

A lot of people have to pay for their web sites by the amount of bandwidth used, so if you're linking to their images (especially without permission), you're consuming their bandwidth and costing them money and they get nothing in return for it. It is theft.