-:Bandwidth Theft:-  

 

What is it?

This information is provided to you to understand what "Bandwidth Theft" is and what actually happens on  a www site.

EACH DAY, every domain and sub-domain creates a LOG FILE of activity for that day. It's a Word Pad type document, that lists EACH and EVERY TIME someone accesses EACH and EVERY graphic or file you have on a www site.

If a person copies and pastes a background, a header...a file....what ever...without saving the relevant material to their own computer, it gives the owner of the site a list for EACH piece that was accessed. It gives them the URL of the site where that piece was called. It gives that person a hyperlink, so all they have to do is click on that and it takes them right to where that piece has been copied and pasted to. This process of "hot linking" a graphic or file is called Bandwidth theft.

Anyone stealing Bandwidth or violating a designers copyright, leaves a calling card , a trail a bread crumbs if you like, RIGHT BACK TO WHERE YOU HAVE USED THAT GRAPHIC OR FILE ON YOUR SITE. If you are stealing large amounts of bandwidth, owners  haven been known to actually sue you for loss of money. The owners have to pay for bandwidth. So you when you steal from them you are costing them more money.

The LOG FILE records the date and time, your ISP, the name of the image that was called. It even tells them what browser you used, it tells if you are using dial up or DSL to connect and then lastly, it gives the URL of the item that that person is calling.

Basically when you steal from a www. site you are leaving a calling cards saying "I'm yada dada, and I have this on my own site". EACH and EVERY time that someone opens the page containing the stolen graphics or a message board with stolen graphics, the same message is sent.