Revenge for illegal img linking?

how to get even

[tkroll]

I just found an eBay seller who is illegally linking one of my images. It is a small, 1x1 white gif. It's not a big bandwidth problem even though he has 1000 auctions at a time, but I don't like it!

His HTML sets height & width on the img, so changing the image to something nasty won't have a good effect.

Any suggestions on how to teach this guy a lesson? He has also stolen and modified my template design, which is why my image is there.

Thanks!

[topr8]

yes email him and ask him to stop using your image.

move the image location and then forget about it

... get your revenge by focusing on your own business and making more money than him.

[brakthepoet]

You can also sign up for eBay's Verified Rights Owner [pages.ebay.com] (VeRO) program. If an ebay seller is using your content without permission, you can report them to eBay. It's essentially eBay's version of the DMCA. eBay will shut down the auctions and notify the seller the general reasons why.

I've used it a few times when our direct competitors have copied and pasted our descriptions or hotlinked to our images. I'm not in business to do their work.

[rocknbil]

Why would someone link to a remote transparent/white spacer image? Odd!

I'll bet at some point he saved the page and modified it for his own use, and just never changed the link. (?) He/she can't be aware of it. Why would some one DO that?

[Corey Bryant]

Does he have in his code to use the size (i.e. width="1" height="1")? If not, create a larger image stating something like: I am stealing images from XXX.XXX domain

-Corey

[Essex_boy]

Nice one corey.

If its such a small image I cant see why they would link on purpose, have you contacted them?

[microcars]

the last time this came up there were some interesting suggestions involving .htaccess and php scripting that would apparently allow you to re-direct any webpage that was remote-linking to a certain file.

unfortunately I was never able to get it to work for the eBay auction listing that was ripping off my tiny image file.

too bad too, I was looking forward to re-directing the listing to a fake page that said the item has been SOLD.

oh, and the discussion got yanked because it got sort of way off-topic for this forum and went into coding, so I can't point you to a previous discussion.

not complaining.

[CanadianChris]

If you move the image on your server, then all his pages wil display a bad image link. Not only does it look bad to his customers, but it's bound to get his attention in one way or another.

Or the really cruel way is to create a php script in place of the image, it will be executed every time the image is called if you set it up right. Have it popup a banner ad every time the script is called - the guy's account will be banned from ebay :) Mean but effective.

[martingale]

change this image to a script that just hangs for 60 seconds and then returns a 404. a lot of browsers will simply hang displaying the page, so none of his auctions will show up and users will click away. that will hit him in the pocket book.

of course, stop using it yourself first....

[martingale]

heh, i see cc had a similar idea at a similar time. do both! make it hang for 60 seconds then launch a popup saying what a dork he is.

[Automan Empire]

From what I have observed, emailing the person sometimes works but more often puts you in contact with a hostile jerk who feels entitled to your stuff and all that implies. Guaranteed to raise your blood pressure and preoccupy your mind out of proportion to the size of the issue.
On the other hand, substituting a "stolen image" takes seconds, leaves you satisfied and smiling, and takes care of the problem thenceforth-at least for that particular image thief. :D

I like some of these other ideas, for the incorrigible cases. You dastardly webmasters, you! LOL

[jk3210]

<<...create a larger image stating something like: I am stealing images from XXX.XXX domain>>

...or...

"10-for-1 Sale!"
"Buy this item and get 10 FREE!

[tkroll]

Hello again! Thanks for all the cool suggestions.

I have contacted eBay and the offender about this before and nothing was done. I did receive a lovely form email from eBay, though. It was very touching.

The HTML is stolen from my template and does include explicit width & height, so swapping the image is out.

If I replace the .gif with a php script will it still execute as a script? How does this work exactly?

It will take about a week for the image in question to get out of my auctions.

I did read and take to heart the first responder's post. This theft has generated many emails from my customers, required me to change my templates, forced me to deal with eBay's lousy Trust & Safety department, and caused various annoyances. The high road is always my first choice. But when it is so full of potholes, another route must be chosen.

[brakthepoet]

I have contacted eBay and the offender about this before and nothing was done.

Did you just email them or did you sign up for eBay's Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program? eBay won't budge until you've signed up for VeRO. Yes, it's a pain to sign up, but I've never had it fail in shutting down auctions. Using eBay's VeRO program, I've reported several sellers for hotlinking. Each time the auctions were shut down within 24 hours.

I've never bothered contacting sellers directly. Most of them are absolute maniacs, and they will deny doing anything wrong despite proof of their theft.

The seller will lose at least $ .35 per auction plus a week or so of lost business. Hit the seller in his wallet if you want revenge.

[martingale]

How to script: Dropping a script in place probably won't work but you could do this with a rewrite rule, for example: one that redirects any request for this image to your script.

Have your script sleep for 30 seconds and then redirect the request back to something on his site. Something large. That way you chew up a lot of his bandwidth on top of frustrating anyone who views his auction.

[CanadianChris]

I'm with martingale on this - use a simple rewrite rule :) Takes a matter of minutes to setup, and get it to load a simple html page with some fun javascript code.

If you are good with javascript, you could distort the entire auction page, make it appear like a full-page banner ad for a porn site, or simply add a comment that was suggest above "Buy 1 Get 10". I personally would go for the porn ad, put an activeX controller in the script to load spyware onto the users browser, and then put a pop-under for viagra :) But that's just me...

[Birdman]

Just for the record, you can't do any pop-ups or JavaScript. The browser is expecting an image and won't execute any code.

[trillianjedi]

you could do this with a rewrite rule, for example: one that redirects any request for this image to your script.

I don't see how this works? Isn't the client browser going to try and render whatever you give it as a 1x1 image?

If not then this is a major security flaw in browsers that allow this.

<Added>Birdman beat me to it</Added>

TJ

[Broax]

my server allows for hotlink protection, which means that if anyone tries to hotlink an image it will redirect it to some other file (like hotlink.jpg) saying "I'm a bandwidth stealing b*****d" sign.

Fiddle around your server options. Mine is currently using cPanel version 10.0.0-RELEASE 161.

[edited by: trillianjedi at 4:50 pm (utc) on April 13, 2005]

[jomaxx]

tkroll has already said it's a 1x1 image displayed with the height= and width= parameters. Therefore changing or removing the image will have essentially no effect. Neither will attempting to redirect the page, or attempting to run PHP or Javascript or any other executable.

I do like martingale's suggestion to have the server simply not reply. Seems kind of futile, though. I don't think it would really have any functional effect.

Here are a few amusing suggestions for a programmatic solution...

I believe cookies can be set in this way, and thus you could set a bunch of cookies named "SO-AND-SO IS RIPPING ME OFF". Not many people will spot the cookies by chance, but give the guy a heads-up about this and the images will be changed in a flash.

When the image referral comes from ebay, have your server redirect it to "do-not-trust-this-seller.com". Then this subliminal message will appear at the bottom of the screen (where the browser tels you it's "Connecting..."). This would work well when combined with martingale's suggestion, so that the message is displayed for the maximum amount of time.

Redirect the image to a porn site that has a filthy name, for your subliminal message, and also sets a lot of cookies.

Unfortunately what you really want is for the guy to stop using the whole template, not to simply rename the image. You could keep escalating things with him and ebay, but he's not harming you, so you're probably better off to put it out of your mind and focus on your business.