Post by District Dave on Oct 7, 2007 11:27:30 GMT
I have had an issue brought to my attention by a member here who also operates a popular web site which has a large number of LU related images on it.
For reasons I quite understand he is upset about having images used as avatars - you will see from the edited extract of an email I have received from him his reasons.....
“………..so it is with that foremost in my mind that -- after some thought -- I've decided to quietly make you aware of the following misdemeanour beyond your control but involving one of your forum members. Mostly I wanted to illustrate the scale on which this problem can easily exist, quite possibly without any malice intended by the person in question.
I haven't been watching your forum regularly, far less posting to it; however I dipped into it last week after being tipped off about an incident on the Central Line.
Immediately I spotted one of my pictures appearing as (username removed) Avatar, and depressingly predictably it had been hotlinked from my webserver. I thought I'd got hotlinking-protection in place, but evidently it wasn't working. Quite apart from the whole data-use issue, I take a dim view of people breaching my copyright -- I probably get more aerated about it
than I should, but after all it is my own work they're nicking.
I have a Copyright policy statement at www.squarewheels.org.uk/copyright which is nothing-if-not
comprehensive.
I looked at the webserver logs, and was *astonished* by what I found (it speaks volumes about the popularity of your forum!) :
In 14 days (2007 August 27 to September 9) my webserver received the following to districtdave.proboards39.com/ .
1,767 requests for image-servings.
792 of these did not require the image to be re-sent as it was already in the user's cache.
Of the remainder there were:
* 632 servings of (link removed) (59250 bytes)
Amount downloaded: 37,446,000 bytes.
* 343 servings of (link removed) (53798 bytes)
Amount downloaded: 18,452,714 bytes.
This comes to a total of 55,899,714 bytes in 14 days. That's a bandwidth-usage rate of 121.5 MB per month. (120 MB is a non-negligeable quantity... it would take 5 minutes to upload it via a good broadband connection under ideal conditions, and it's enough to fill one fifth of a CD-ROM!)
There was a time (5 years ago) when my ISP capped bandwidth-usage at 0.5GB/month, though it's now much higher. Back then this would have eaten up a quarter of my entire allocation.
Excess bandwidth-usage is charged (to me by my ISP) at the industry standard of 2p/MB. On the assumption that (username removed) been doing this since he joined Proboards in March, that's 6 months x 2p/MB x 120MB/month; the data use he has generated could be worth £14.40 .
All this for NO traffic to my website, and not so much as a "nod" to the photograph's origin."
I have to say that I personally had not considered this matter before, but I can perfectly understand our fellow member's position and view of this matter.
Therefore, can I please ask that if you are linking to any external web site for an image to use as an avatar that you have the permission of the web site owner so to do.
Alternatively (and as I know has been suggested before) you aquire a photo hosting site and link to that, having obtained the web site owners permission to copy the image from their site and then hold it on your own.
I'm sorry if that seems complex, but it is unfair to use any image and bandwidth in the way as has occured here.
Should any similar example be brought to the admin's attention we will, out of courtesy to the image or site owner, immediately remove the offending avatar.
Thanks.
For reasons I quite understand he is upset about having images used as avatars - you will see from the edited extract of an email I have received from him his reasons.....
“………..so it is with that foremost in my mind that -- after some thought -- I've decided to quietly make you aware of the following misdemeanour beyond your control but involving one of your forum members. Mostly I wanted to illustrate the scale on which this problem can easily exist, quite possibly without any malice intended by the person in question.
I haven't been watching your forum regularly, far less posting to it; however I dipped into it last week after being tipped off about an incident on the Central Line.
Immediately I spotted one of my pictures appearing as (username removed) Avatar, and depressingly predictably it had been hotlinked from my webserver. I thought I'd got hotlinking-protection in place, but evidently it wasn't working. Quite apart from the whole data-use issue, I take a dim view of people breaching my copyright -- I probably get more aerated about it
than I should, but after all it is my own work they're nicking.
I have a Copyright policy statement at www.squarewheels.org.uk/copyright which is nothing-if-not
comprehensive.
I looked at the webserver logs, and was *astonished* by what I found (it speaks volumes about the popularity of your forum!) :
In 14 days (2007 August 27 to September 9) my webserver received the following to districtdave.proboards39.com/ .
1,767 requests for image-servings.
792 of these did not require the image to be re-sent as it was already in the user's cache.
Of the remainder there were:
* 632 servings of (link removed) (59250 bytes)
Amount downloaded: 37,446,000 bytes.
* 343 servings of (link removed) (53798 bytes)
Amount downloaded: 18,452,714 bytes.
This comes to a total of 55,899,714 bytes in 14 days. That's a bandwidth-usage rate of 121.5 MB per month. (120 MB is a non-negligeable quantity... it would take 5 minutes to upload it via a good broadband connection under ideal conditions, and it's enough to fill one fifth of a CD-ROM!)
There was a time (5 years ago) when my ISP capped bandwidth-usage at 0.5GB/month, though it's now much higher. Back then this would have eaten up a quarter of my entire allocation.
Excess bandwidth-usage is charged (to me by my ISP) at the industry standard of 2p/MB. On the assumption that (username removed) been doing this since he joined Proboards in March, that's 6 months x 2p/MB x 120MB/month; the data use he has generated could be worth £14.40 .
All this for NO traffic to my website, and not so much as a "nod" to the photograph's origin."
I have to say that I personally had not considered this matter before, but I can perfectly understand our fellow member's position and view of this matter.
Therefore, can I please ask that if you are linking to any external web site for an image to use as an avatar that you have the permission of the web site owner so to do.
Alternatively (and as I know has been suggested before) you aquire a photo hosting site and link to that, having obtained the web site owners permission to copy the image from their site and then hold it on your own.
I'm sorry if that seems complex, but it is unfair to use any image and bandwidth in the way as has occured here.
Should any similar example be brought to the admin's attention we will, out of courtesy to the image or site owner, immediately remove the offending avatar.
Thanks.
