How to handle chicken thieves.
.

Alrighty then, time for a little fun. I thought I'd make this page to share something funny that happened. An incident where someone stole my Chenghua chicken cup. No, not like when the crooks downloaded my images and sold my pieces on eBay before being caught. This time my images were being used on someone's webpage without my permission. This has happened many times and I usually ignore it. In a way it's a compliment when that happens, but it's always nice to ask permission. All my images are protected by copyright.

But the manner in which they use your images can effect your own site (server) in the way of bandwidth. If they have a high visibility site, and they list one (or more) of your images directly (by URL location) it could slow your server due to bandwidth limitations. They are in effect using your bandwidth. It's called image hijacking. This can impact your server and make page loading slower for your regular viewers. Webmasters and authors that do this think they are pretty smart, as large images won't take up space on their server. Kind of like free storage for them, but at your expense.

It's bad enough when your images are downloaded and used without permission, but when it's done in the manner I've just explained, it's even worse. In examining my servers raw data logs, I noticed many hits coming from a certain IP address. A little more detective work turned up the site using an image of my Chenghua chicken cup. It was actually from a University, a dissertation (or thesis) from someone working on their degree. I also discovered quite a bit of plagiarism on the page. Again, it is a compliment, but it's also dishonest.

I took the image they were using, modified it (as shown above), keeping the same dimensions and name. Perhaps Cheng and Hua (similar to the Foster Farms chickens) will teach the budding scholar a little lesson. When he next visits (or shares) his page, the above image will be waiting.    (sorry professor)

Update:  After allowing enough time for the image to do it's job, I created an .htaccess file in my server directory to prevent any future image hijacking.  The following image is now displayed if image hijacking is attempted on any of my images. It actually serves a dual-purpose. It prevents the hijack attempt and, at the same time, warns the viewer to beware of the URL address (or domain name) shown on their browser. The image below is what they will see.

I may change the image from time to time. But regardless of it's appearance, it serves the purpose. Hotlinking is becoming quite an issue on the net. Stealing bandwidth can be costly to someone trying to make an honest living from their page. Luckily I'm not selling anything, and I have unlimited bandwidth and space.

Back to Main Page