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Hotlinking

when you link directly to images on a website, instead of copying them on your own website.

Practical disadvantage

  • you have no control over the displayed content on your website.
    • e.g. the original owner can add offensive content to the image.
    • the original image can go offline = link rot

Moral disadvantage

  • the original owner is paying for the bandwidth used to display the image on your site. Because of that It’s morally frowned on. It’s legal but unethical
    • sometimes hotlinking is called bandwidth theft
      • hotlinking isn’t illegal and not actual theft

Pinterest & Google use a hybrid hotlink solution:

  • Save thumbnails on own server, minimizing storage & bandwidth costs
  • hotlink to the original size media.