Definition of direct linking or bandwidth theft, also known as hot linking.

One of the biggest problems with bandwidth theft is that a lot of people don't fully understand just what bandwidth is or the effects of bandwidth theft on the Internet. There are a lot of people explaining it in technical terms, but hopefully this page can explain it a way that may hit closer to home. The analogies I may use are not exact, but are intended to compare bandwidth and bandwidth theft to situations everyone can relate to.

Hot Linking

Posting or otherwise using an image, which is hosted on web space that you are not authorized to use. This drains bandwidth from that web space and costs its owner money every time the page containing the image is viewed.

What is bandwidth?

Think of it as (here comes the analogy) the amount of electricity used to display images on the Internet. In the same way that a 15 watt light bulb and a microwave oven use different amounts of electricity, different types of files use different amounts of bandwidth.

Whenever a image file is linked to, the server (FHL Mobile Marketing) that houses that file, has to supply the bandwidth necessary to get that file to your website or email page and is supplying their bandwidth everytime someone loads a page with the image on it.

Who "owns" it and who pays for it?

Back to the electricity analogy: The electric company "owns" the electricity until you use it. Then you are billed for what you use. The server charges commercial website owners for the amount of bandwidth they use. Some have a monthly allotment and then are charged extra when they exceed that amount. The servers and commercial website owners pay for the bandwidth.

Remember, .com stands for commercial. These are not non-profit businesses. Many commercial sites have been forced to close because they could not afford to keep paying their increased bandwidth charges.

You May Not

You may NOT copy a image, photo, graphic, or picture (also known as "copy and paste" or "cut and paste) from any of my websites and paste it to your own website(s). This does not actually copy the picture, but merely copies the URL from my websites. This causes the image, photo, graphic, or picture to be downloaded from my servers every time someone looks at your website. This increases the bandwidth on my websites and costs FHL Mobile Marketing money.

You may NOT make a link from your website, email, discussion group or forum to my server that causes a picture to be downloaded from any of my websites each time your pages are accessed. This increases the bandwidth on my websites and costs FHL Mobile Marketing money.

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism in as it applies to anything is a form of stealing. It is when a person has a website on the Internet, willingly and knowingly uses, without permission from the original owner, graphics or written words; regardless if they generate revenue from their website or not.

To steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source.

To commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

All of the webpages, pictures, photographs, backgrounds, borders, graphics, animation's, words and HTML on all of FHL Mobile Marketings websites are protected by US and International Copyright Laws and may not be copied, reprinted, published, added to collections or distributed without prior written permission (unless otherwise noted).

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