Some people honestly do not know they're doing any harm. Some maliciously do it because they don't even care. 

I'm talking about direct linking. A growing problem that happens to both small and big websites. Direct linking has several names; you might of heard of image linking, hot linking, or stealing. This is when you use another persons graphics that's linked on their website, but you use it without uploading them to your own web server or webspace.

Say for example you see a blend or image on my website that you like it very much. So instead of right clicking it, and saving it to your hard drive. You right click and click on "properties", this would take you to a box that pops up and shows you the complete link to that heart. You copy the link you see in the properties box, and then you paste it to wherever you want to use the heart; a website, photo album, etc. 

Sounds pretty harmless right? To you no it's not, but to me it would be. The reason would be because you are stealing my bandwidth, and in most cases a lot of people buy their domain, which means they pay for their bandwidth. Considering you are not helping me pay for my domain, taking an image that I uploaded to my server and using the link to display it on your web page, etc; is stealing.  Basically saving your webspace and bandwidth by stealing mine. This is definitely a problem, considering some people do have copy rights on their images, and direct linking to them can be illegal. 

If I'm using this heart and you are too, this is double my bandwidth and can cause my website to shut down for several days. This is a major problem, and can cause many other problems with my website. By shutting down my website it also means the image you direct linked too, will be down too! Which means it'll come up as an red X, a bandwidth warning label, or not come up at all. I know you don't want that, so what's the harm in uploading it to your space, it'll make me happy, and you won't have to worry about an awful looking red X!

So if you are reading this, and have done this before and not been aware of the effects of direct linking, then you should take that image down, and upload it to your webspace. It's better to do, and in the end the right thing to do.

But if you're like a lot of people, and direct link cause you just can and cause it saves you from paying etc. You need to stop it. There is loads of ways people can track you if you're using their image. So the best thing to do is use your own webspace.

And for those who might not have much webspace? There's plenty of free services out there for you to sign up and upload your images there. Plenty of them allow you to direct link the images you uploaded as well. Check out the list below.

PhotoBucket

TinyPic

ImageShack

 and these are just a few to name

If you want more free image hosting services, click here for a automatic yahoo search, a lot of people add free Image Hosting almost everyday, so check back often.