Forum Moderators: phranque
any new options peope are using to stop this?
RewriteEngine ON
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^http://(www\.)?offendingdomain\.com/
RewriteRule \.(gif¦jpg¦jpeg¦png¦swf)$ /ads/your-ad.jpg
Jomaxx, what did you place in your .htacess file to block JUST myspace. I can't block all hotlinking because we have several legit users linking to photos.
what did you place in your .htacess file to block JUST myspace. I can't block all hotlinking because we have several legit users linking to photos.
Message #3 should be a good starting point ;)
(Clearly these ain't no accidents.)
I already serve up a special, low-res image for hijackers featuring my site's name but theft of content+graphics is not only bandwidth theft but a violation of copyright, too.
So every two weeks, I note which blogs -- on MySpace, on Yahoo, on groups.msn.com -- have stolen what, and fire off yet another Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaint to the appropriate host (I now have quasi-templates for each one because each is a little bit different.) Typically, nothing happens for at least two weeks, at which point I fire off another copy of the notice, and include the chronology. After about a month, the offending pages have been either removed or fixed, by whom I don't know.
If you're inclined to complain -- and I urge you to because the more of us who do might mean MySpace and its ilk pay will more attention to this -- here's how-to, from MySpace's FAQ:
Q. How do I report a copyright violation? [viewmorepics.myspace.com]
Good luck!
The easiest thing like somebody said was to just block the hotlinking with mod rewrite
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} myspace
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} (gif¦jpg¦png¦jpeg)
RewriteRule (.*) - [F]
That sends a 403 Forbidden response for any request sent to your site for gifs, jpegs, pngs, (and any other extension you want to add) from a refererring URL which contains the word myspace in it.
MySpace wasn't the one that actually put the images on the site in the first place. They didn't agree to any contract.
So MySpace has no responsibility for the content of their servers. So I can start a server that people can upload DVD movies to and share with others?
Secondly, once you're aware of this issue, it doesn't take much to add hotlinking prevention.
"Linking to internal images from this domain to your domain is only $10.50/MB to be billed monthly. Your binding contract with us begins by simply adding are URL with IMG html to your website."
MySpace never read this contract, nor did MySpace add the image to their website. In fact, with that wording, even the person who took it isn't entering any contract, as MySpace isn't their website.
MySpace, Tagworld, Geocities, Tripod, Angelfire, Atspace, etc. etc. These are websites where people can create HTML content. I highly doubt you expect every one of these institutions to manually go over every individual line of HTML put into their system to make sure that someone's not hotlinking another domain.
For example, check out MySpace's Terms of Use [viewmorepics.myspace.com], and specifically, section 6 --
You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Content posted by you on or through the Services or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, and (ii) the posting of your Content on or through the Services does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person...
(Section 9 continues along the same lines, and references common DMCA language.)
But hey, seeing as how personal interpretations of Things Legal by non-lawyers get tedious in a hurry, suffice it to say that MySpace and its ilk have provisions against copyright infringement by their members/users -- and unauthorized hotlinking is darn near slam-dunk evidence of same.
Someone taken your copyrighted material? They provide you ways to contact them to get rid of it.
MySpace.com may delete any Content that in the sole judgment of MySpace.com violates this Agreement or which may be offensive, illegal or violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of any person. MySpace.com assumes no responsibility for monitoring the Services for inappropriate Content or conduct. If at any time MySpace.com chooses, in its sole discretion, to monitor the Services, MySpace.com nonetheless assumes no responsibility for the Content, no obligation to modify or remove any inappropriate Content, and no responsibility for the conduct of the User submitting any such Content.
The idea to bill MySpace seems silly. I couldn't see how anyone would expect MySpace to review every single thing that someone wrote on their website, especially at the size of its membership. If someone's got your content on there, you contact MySpace about it. If they're hotlinking, you can still contact them, as well as disable hotlinking.
I think you mistook my post to mean that I think the hotlinking/stealing is not a legal issue. I was simply saying his contract idea was bogus.
MySpace.com assumes no responsibility for monitoring the Services for inappropriate Content or conduct.
...to my DVD user upload site applies appropriately, but will it fly in court? No judge, only the people with the rights to Star Wars were allowed to upload it. I just assumed it was George Lucas. I can't be held responsible for monitering my own upload service and I certainly am not responsible for its content. MySpace can say whatever they want in their TOS, it doesn't make it legal.
This is actually the scenerio building with MySpace. Corporations and Lawyers have a common rule, sue whoever has the deepest pockets. They are probably just letting MySpace build to it's maximum growth potential and once it levels off the lawsuits will come pouring in from everybody that wants a piece of the pie. You don't think the RIAA isn't aware of all the illegal music on myspace? Do you really think that BritneySpears9332 is the real Britney and has the rights to play her song when you load her page?
1. images.google.com 40%
2. profile.myspace.com 15%
3. www.google.com 10%
I have an htaccess file which blocks ALL image referrals, including blank ones, except a list of about 8 domains i recognize and allow to link. Otherwise, they get an ad for my website which is about 5K in size. Still, my daily bandwidth is about 750meg. If it wasn't blocking hotlink offenders, it would be three times that.
I used to go to sites, one by one, and block them in my htaccess file, but after about having a list of 50 sites and still growing, i decided to reverse my coding and just disasslow everyone.
MySpace.com assumes no responsibility for monitoring the Services for inappropriate Content or conduct.
...will it fly in court?
Note that many server hosts state that they will not "monitor" what you post. But, in accordance with DMCA "Safe Harbour" practice, those same hosts will take action once they are made aware of a potential problem.
There is a big difference between being pro-active (monitoring and then ititiating take-downs), being re-active (responding to claims from purported copyright holders), and not doing anything at all (waiting until you land in court and hoping for the best).
I would doubt that any host or that many forum Admins would bother with the effort of being pro-active, but a sensibly re-active policy would seem only wise.
Eliz.
Though cumbersome, this will surely disrupt hotlinking for a little while.
I would doubt that any host or that many forum Admins would bother with the effort of being pro-active, but a sensibly re-active policy would seem only wise.
I have to agree with you. The current state of copyright and the internet is still pretty shaky at best. Look at all the rules that apply to TV stations. TV has been around for about 60 years, and only just 5 or 10 years ago they made that law that all stations must have little boxes with ratings (in US at least). Laws are created or changed as they are needed. So yes, right now, at this point in time, many things that many websites are getting away with could easily disappear at any time. I personally wouldn't base my long term business model around loose copyright laws.
I would like to be that person who does win the $10.50/MB lawsuit in a precedent setting court case. Why hasn't their been a major lawsuit over hotlinking yet? Doesn't matter, their will be sooner or later.
There are tons of sites with images, and flash games, etc. that allow people to just copy the url of the content and put it on a webpage. And then the upload sites like imageshack, flickr, etc. etc. The average netizen uses these, as well as some more savvy people. What occurs is they don't become aware that it costs someone to load that content each time.
I deal with a bit of hotlinking although I don't find it as a killer on my bandwidth at the moment, so I'm not blocking it as of yet.
The problem with hotlinking protections, is that it also hurts the host, by making his site less usable for his genuine visitors, and limiting his right to post images from his site directly to others.
But the .htaccess protection is the only thing that stops all hot linkers.
On the plus side, I no longer get the non converting cheap traffic from Google Image.
I've sent official notices regarding MySpace members' violations of clients' copyrights (re code, content, graphics; including theft of bandwidth) and MySpace typically complied within approx. a month each time.
Why bother?
Because blocking/rewriting bandwidth theft via .htaccess still adds to server logs, costs bandwidth (and time), and doesn't necessarily protect your copyrights. So if someone's stealing your stuff, send a DMCA.
You'll find the link for reporting copyright violation(s) by MySpace users in my initial post in this thread (#7).
Considering the popularity of firefox and it's ability to turn off referrer it wouldn't take much for people at the MySpace community to spread the word if so inspired.
I know this is all speculation but it could still become a reality. Imagine if Microsoft decides that the default setting on IE7 is referrer turned off.
users doing this en masse
Thats most likely true. I'm not saying it will happen but the potential is definately there. I could see a little message at the top of forums and places like MySpace saying, "Firefox users can view images by clicking here". Which takes them to an extension installation page for an extension that turns off referrer.
Would I be better to have:
<a href="http://mysite.com"><img src="http://mysite.com/image.jpg"></a>
or
<img src="http://mysite.com/image.jpg">
<a href"http://mysite.com">Get Cool images for your site</a>
Also let's imagine I wanted to offer a "quote of the day" to myspace users. I think I would have to use and Iframe and then outside the iframe have a ink to my site.
Is there another way to run a remote script from a site? Can jacascript usee xmlhttp?
