a question of netiquette, and web log amusement

[mamajoan]

I have a question for those of y'all who have experienced bandwidth theft (and I know that applies to many of y'all on my friends-list). I just discovered that someone has taken one of my photos of Hawaii (which I posted on my website) and used it as a background image on his/her website. Now, although I've never actually had this happen before, I've seen enough of y'all go through it that I knew what to do, so I immediately replaced it with a very ugly image that simply says "i steal bandwidth." Heh, it sure makes his/her site look ugly. ;)

My question to y'all is: would you have emailed the person first? Said something like, "um, hello, you're stealing bandwidth and you didn't ask permission, you really oughta stop"? Or just gone straight to the evil punishment? Should I email the person now that I've replaced the image, and explain myself, or just leave it at that? Is there an "etiquette" of punishing bandwidth thieves? ;)

How I found this out is a somewhat entertaining story. It all started with a post that bethbethbeth made earlier today, which prompted me to look at my web-logs which I hadn't done in a while.

A digression to explain that: Before "weblog/blog" meant online journal, it meant the log file that your website's server keeps, a complete record of which files on your site were accessed, and by whom, and where they came from (that is, what website had a link which they clicked to get to your website). Reading this log can be a lot of fun, because if someone accesses your site via a search engine, like Google, the referrer URL will contain the search term that they typed in. For example, if you go to Google and search for "pervert mutant hobbit sex," and you click one of the links that the search gives you, and the link takes you to my website*, then I can see in my logs that you were searching for "pervert mutant hobbit sex." Keep that in mind next time you Google!
* not that you would ever find pervert hobbit sex on my website, mutant or otherwise!

Anyway, like I said, it had been a while since I looked at my web-logs, so I checked 'em out today, and it's as entertaining as always. A lot of people are getting to my site by searching for the word "tattoo" and various other words that describe my tattoos, such as "black cat" or "pisces" or "breast." People are still doing searches on names of various Xena and Star Trek characters about whom I have written erotic fanfic. At least one person found my Xena fanfic by asking ask.com, "why is semen sticky?" (I *so* don't want to know the story behind that one.) I'm slightly alarmed by how many people are searching on "pregnancy pictures" and if they're looking for masturbation purposes I really don't want to know about it. ;P

Anyway, the point of bethbethbeth's post is that if you use a filter on your LJ friends-page, and then you click a link on that filtered page, the webmaster of the link can see the name of your filter. So, for example, if you had me on an LJ filter called "idiots" and you used that filter to read one of my entries that contained a link to my website, and you clicked that link, then I would be able to see in my web-log that you had put me in a group called "idiots." (Also, you wouldn't necessarily have to click a link. If I had posted, in my LJ entry, an image that was hosted on my website, the mere act of your browser loading the image would cause an entry in my web log.) Just something to think about when you choose names for your friend-filters. ;)

Comments

[jmtorres.livejournal.com]

So far, my weblogs have only shown flattering friends groups like "daily+reads" and "must+read". I feel so blessed.

And the search strings really *are* hilarious sometimes.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

My question to y'all is: would you have emailed the person first? Said something like, "um, hello, you're stealing bandwidth and you didn't ask permission, you really oughta stop"?

Personally? I think I'd probably write to the person first. The first year or so that I was online I didn't have a clue what "stealing bandwidth" meant. Mind you, I didn't have a website, either, so it was sort of a moot point, but the thing is, s/he may not actually know that this kind of thing is Not Done (tm).

(Just wondering: would you care if s/he'd downloaded the picture and then used it? Because...those are *really* lovely shots, and I understand that person's grab impulse.)

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

s/he may not actually know that this kind of thing is Not Done (tm).

Yeah, that's what occurred to me immediately after I replaced the image, so I started to feel kinda bad about it. :( I just sent him/her an email and we'll see what happens.

And yeah, if someone asked my permission first, and then copied the image to their own server, and gave me proper credit for it, I'd be fine with that. They are beautiful pictures. *wishes she were in Hawaii right now*

[kenboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I actually snagged a lovely Charisma Carpenter wallpaper one day, way back when, used it as the background on my LJ for a day or two, and got a regular nasty-gram about it.

Hey, I didn't know.

I promptly copied it to my webspace. You know what, most people have no IDEA what "stealing bandwidth" is, especially if (like me) they're simply getting some space free with their internet access or (also like me) are quietly running a webserver on a spare machine in their office. I sure didn't know.

People ripping off the work of others and passing it off as their own, though, that's just wrong, and everyone should know better than that. Rob at www.cockeyed.com (not even vaguely a porn site, despite the awful name. Quite fun, though) had some fun with folks doing that.

For a meaner way to deal, you can look into all that Grey Day stuff, but I'm with Jennyo as to the complete lack-of-helpfulness of that approach. YMMV.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

For a meaner way to deal, you can look into all that Grey Day stuff, but I'm with Jennyo as to the complete lack-of-helpfulness of that approach.

Well, first of all, something like Grey Day is quite different from the approach of replacing a stolen graphic. The latter is a tactic to use against someone who is stealing your bandwidth; you replace the filename with a different image that has a message to tell people that the image is stolen. Grey Day, on the other hand, was all about waking people up to the fact that fan-created art (of any sort) belongs to the fan who created it.

Second of all, personally I think both are completely appropriate for their given situations. It may be true that Grey Day didn't really affect many of the people it was intended to educate, but I think it was a great idea and if it educated even one person, it was a success. Because, like you said, a lot of newbies don't even realize that these kinds of thievery are in fact thievery, and they -- at least the ones with consciences -- can benefit from having it pointed out. Preferably BEFORE they actually commit a violation. Which was, as I understood it, the whole point of Grey Day. And I don't really think it's fair to call that mean.

Anyway, in my particular case, I did jump to the conclusion that the person was a jerk, rather than giving him/her the benefit of the doubt, and that's what I feel bad about and that's why I posted this post and send the person an email. But if s/he doesn't respond with a heartfelt apology and "I didn't know!" and take the picture down, then I think I'm completely justified in leaving up the "I steal bandwidth" image.

[kenboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree that you're totally justified in leaving up that image if there's no apology.

As far as Grey Day, my main issue, and maybe it's more because I'm not THAT into fandom (though, I should mention, love the icon), is that I just have trouble believing that most people go to fanish sites every single day. Personally, my only daily connection to any sort of fandom is through LJ. Maybe it's not mean, but I don't think it's especially effective, either. I think educational approaches ("How to get a nifty LJ icon" posts) are far better than the opposite.

Thinking about the icons, actually, which seem to be a hot spot: I never would have stopped to think that people who make screen caps would be pissed if I used one of their caps to make an icon. (I never have, either, but it just never OCCURED to me). I have enough common sense that I wouldn't just snag your icon and start using it, or snag it, remove your text, and put in my own -- but if I were to happen across (making this up) www.wickedsweetbuffycaps.com and see the perfect graphic, were there no information up there about how to make icons or whatever from it, I don't know that prior to all this Grey Day publicity if I really would have thought twice about using it.

Which, two things: makes me somewhat of an idiot, I suppose, and also, does NOT prove the usefulness of Grey Day -- I stopped for the first time to think, "hey, that pisses off the cappers, and I guess I understand why, now that I think about it" because of the educational conversations brewing about Grey Day, and not because www.wickedsweetbuffycaps was down for one 24-hour period, which I well may have missed.

Eh, I don't know. Hope you don't hate me for invariably having the opposite opinion of you. Hey, it's what makes all this commenting fun, no?

BTW, were it me, I'd replace the picture with one of something hideous or rude, rather than a "I steal bandwidth" pic. Maybe, if the site had a picture of its owner, one of said owner in a compromising position with a sheep or some such.

That sort of thing.

[retch.livejournal.com]

Heh, well, here we get into the other side of copyright law. If said fan created art is like (for example) your icon, which is based on a screen cap, then you have zero moral right to it whatsoever. Somebody copying it is no less or more infringing on the creator than you are. Derivative works are owned by the original copyright holder, with a few special exceptions (see the interminable discussions of 'Fair Use'). So any fan-art that is not original enough to count as a non-derivative work (an oil painting of Sarah Michele Geller as Buffy, that is not a clone of a scene from the show, might qualify as non-derivative, though it would still be trademark infrining most likely, which is an entirely more complex kettle of boiled monkies) is not really anything that the assembler has a moral claim to, and thus any indignation expressed over other people taking that is pretty much a thief whining about people stealing from them. Imagine, is there no honor among thieves??

Whee, isn't intellectual property fun?

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

No, I'd have to disagree. I'm not going to get into the interminable "is fanart copyright infringement" debate either, but I still believe that if someone takes a screencap and puts words of her own choosing on it and shrinks it to lj-icon size, she has a moral claim to that icon, regardless of whether it's *legally* hers; and people who take it without permission are violating etiquette, even if they're not violating any actual law. It's a question of courtesy, basically.

[retch.livejournal.com]

No, unequivocally not, resizing and adding a caption in no way makes that into something the 'creator' has a claim on. To object to people copying that is ludicrous given the much greater depth of the original theft. If it is etiquette that thieft number 2 ask first, then thief number 1 should have asked as well. Since thief number 1 didn't, and had no interest in doing so, it is hypocritical in the extreme to complain about thief number 2.

[kenboy.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I don't know. "Thief #1" still thought of the idea of taking that particular shot and sticking those particular words on it. "Thief #2" is ripping them off, should they take that same icon and use it themselves; I don't know, it would be like using someone else's name on IRC or something, just not right.

I know legally you're right about derivative works, but in the LJ community, I think the standard is don't "steal" peoples' icons. It's like, in music-sharing circles, sure, you're still stealing music, but it's "bad manners" in that community to not share your own files, you know?

The moral code of the particular community is effectively the governing law there, I guess.

[retch.livejournal.com]

sure that's the etiquette within that community, I'm just saying that if somebody doesn't follow it, there is no moral basis to being upset. The community can certainly impose its own consequences (banning, ostracism, etc. depending on the power and nature of the community), but that doesn't mean that the community is correct. Informing on your fellow mobsters may get you assassinated, that is the social more in that community, but it doesn't make it right, or justifiable. Clearly that is an extreme example, but the hypocritical nature of taking somebody else's work, and then complaining when somebody else takes it from you just seems painfully obvious to me.

[azurelunatic]

elke_tanzer is doing things about people stealing bandwidth, if you weren't already aware.

My most commonly used filter is my #32, named, "Not (page size)", used for when someone or something is mangling, stretching, or spamming my friends page. (The slashdot feed is a regular offender, because LJ checks it more than every thirty minutes, generating a host of "Your reader is abusing our server" messages every time.) The members of the filter change situationally; included are everyone who is not currently folding, spindling, or mutilating my friends page; excluded are those who currently have large images, too many entries that are not of interest, and/or bad html.

[tiggrrl.livejournal.com]

All my filters are nice things ('cause if you have a filter called "assholes" why bother ever reading it?).

As far as I know, all the pictures I have are public property, and I've always downloaded them to my own machine, even before I knew that it was naughty to use someone else's bandwidth.

I think it would have been nicer of you to send the e-mail first, but I don't think you were out of line to just change the image.

[retch.livejournal.com]

Hmm, it no doubt is an issue amongst fandom, but it seems pretty clear that people posting links to your images is just fine. If you don't want it publicly accessible, don't make it so. The very nature of the net is built around linking to stuff, and there has been a lot of discussion about what the impact of moving the burden of policing content to the linker instead of the linkee would be. The general consensus is that the harm would be intense, which is why the EFF has weighed in against all the anti-linking lawsuits that have been filed.

So, having said that, of course it is your file and you can change it whenever you want, to whatever you want. You can also send email to people who are linking to your stuff and ask them not to, and if they are reasonable they probably will get rid of the link. If you want to take steps to control your content, I believe you can do some server foo to restrict access so only pages served by your server can access the image, for a start.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Linking to an image with [a href="imagename"] would be fine. What isn't fine is using the image directly on your site with [img src="imagename"]. Because that way anyone who loads YOUR webpage is putting a burden on MY site's server. And if I get charged extra money by my site hosting provider based on bandwidth usage, then you are actually costing me money. Which is just plain wrong. You should copy the image onto your own site so that you're the one incurring the bandwidth.

[retch.livejournal.com]

No, it is fine, if you don't want people to do it, you need to take steps to control access. In fact, copying the image to their machine is a copyright violation, and thus legally wrong, whereas using an <img src="foo"> tag is part of the core structure of how the world wide web is built. That linkage is an intentional design element. If you don't want people to be able to access your images from outside your webpage, the burden is on you to set things up in that manner. :) The default assumption of the net is that people are trying to share things, if you want to restrict, you need to do the work