Bandwidth Theft

What is bandwidth theft?

Bandwidth theft is directly linking to an image on my site (as opposed to my web page), rather than downloading the image to your own computer, and uploading it to your own website.

Why is this a problem?

When you directly link to my images (by doing this: <IMG SRC="http://www.cherylrainfield.com/ cherylrainfieldcom-square2.jpg">), you are making your page use my Internet resources. Each time that image is viewed on your site, it uses a certain amount of resources or bandwidth from my computer. This is stealing bandwidth.

It's like you've plugged an extension cord directly into my house to pay for your lights being on. Or as if you've hooked up your hose to my faucet to fill your swimming pool. While it's convenient for you, I have to pay for the extra usage.

How do I use your images, then, without stealing bandwidth?

Here's what you do:

1.) Copy the images you want to use onto your own computer, and them upload them to the directory for your own site (where you store your html files, such as index.html).

To copy an image: Hold your mouse over the image you want to copy, and right click. Select "Save Image As". You will be given another menu so you can select the file name and location of where you want to save the image. WebTV users, use the Transloader!

2.) Make sure that the image is being loaded from your own directory instead of the site where you original got it.

If the image you want to load is in the same directory as the page you want to display it on, the HTML code is simply <img src="the path, name an extension of the image"> For example, if you store this button in the same directory as your home page, or index.html, then the code would look like this: <img src=cherylrainfieldcom-square2.jpg>.

Then, to make that image link back to my web page, you would add a link to my page <A HREF="http://www.CherylRainfield.com><img src=cherylrainfieldcom-square2.jpg></A>

That's it!

Remember: Your code should never look like: <img src="http://www.artists_server.com/nameofimage.gif">

There are many good reasons not to link directly to someone else's images (besides the fact that you're stealing their bandwidth). Firstly, your pages will load faster if the images you use are stored on your own site. Secondly, you'll know that the images will always be there. Many artists, including myself, change their sites often, or even remove images. If you link directly to one of their images, you might someday find an error message on your page, replacing that image, or even a graphic saying that you are stealing bandwidth.

Many great sites have disappeared over the past few years because their owners couldn't afford to pay the extra bandwidth cost that occurred when people direclty linked to their images (bandwidth theft).

Please respect artists' work...and their bandwidth. Don't steal bandwidth. Thank you!