Posted by tm on 01/19/26 11:34

In article <joelshep-2420F6.09005713122005@news1.east.earthlink.net>,
Joel Shepherd <joelshep@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Toby Inkster wrote:
> > Els wrote:

> > > Or maybe a better analogy - shop sells beer with the promotion: buy 5,
> > > get the 6th free. Do you plead 'not guilty' when they bust you for
> > > only taking the 6th, because it is free?
> >
> > Better analogy: I'm giving out free hobnobs to anyone who visits me at
> > home; you give people my address and say "free hobnobs here" and suddenly
> > everyone's turning and taking my hobnobs. Are you stealing hobnobs from
> > me?
>
> The issue is not hobnobs or pictures. We're not talking about "picture
> theft" and if we were there is already copyright law to address that
> issue.
>
> The issue is bandwidth, which many people who run websites pay for
> monthly, for the specific purpose of serving content to visitors to
> their site. When another person uses that bandwidth to serve content to
> _their_ visitors, they are taking something of value from the original
> site owner. The original owner has been deprived of bandwidth which they
> are paying for to serve up their own site.
>
> E.g., someone hotlinking to a large video file on my site can rapidly
> consume bandwidth I'm paying for to serve both that file and hundreds of
> smaller pages. If the abuse goes far enough, either my own visitors are
> cut off from all content on my site, or I pay much higher fees for the
> extra bandwidth to keep the site up. I am being deprived of something of
> value which I've paid for. That sounds an awful lot like theft to me.
>
> Drop the analogies for once. The issue is not that hard to understand.

So, no beer? Why bother then?

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