I can't post photos

[akurah]

If you own the picture, I see no issue really, maybe the term "hotlinking" is confusing? Not sure that's what you meant.

It's because if you are hosting an image on an image site that does not allow hotlinking, you are effectively stealing their bandwidth and violating their TOS. Bandwidth costs money. I'm trying to think of a comparison that might make it make sense to someone who's not big on tech. But you know how, at least in the US, there are data caps on internet usage on cell phone services and internet services? It's because bandwidth isn't cheap and it costs to connect to various websites, and the more connections made, the more expensive it gets over time.

I don't know if LHC would be considered liable or not, but even if they aren't, the user would be breaking the terms of service and eligible for punishments such as account deactivations or cancellations.

[MusicalSpoons]

I use Imgur and open the picture, the link to which will be a URL ending in .jpg which you can put inti the [IMG] tags (insert s m or l before .jpg for the appropriate size).

lapushka as far as I understand it's mainly if it's from someone else's website. I would imagine if you're hotlinking your own picture from your own website, which you pay for and know how hotlinking works and are happy with that, that would be okay? The issue is often hotlinked images would be from non image hosting sites and use up bandwidth (and costs) without the owner's consent.

Edit: and just seen akurah's post mentioning T&Cs, I hadn't realised that was an issue as well.

[akurah]

I use Imgur and open the picture, the link to which will be a URL ending in .jpg which you can put inti the [IMG] tags (insert s m or l before .jpg for the appropriate size).

lapushka as far as I understand it's mainly if it's from someone else's website. I would imagine if you're hotlinking your own picture from your own website, which you pay for and know how hotlinking works and are happy with that, that would be okay? The issue is often hotlinked images would be from non image hosting sites and use up bandwidth (and costs) without the owner's consent.

Edit: and just seen akurah's post mentioning T&Cs, I hadn't realised that was an issue as well.

Yeah if you're hotlinking from your own hosted website on your own hosted domain, I believe that is allowed. Hosting services for websites will have bandwidth caps though, so if your website uses more bandwidth than you pay for as part of your hosting plan you will either be charged extra or your website will become unavailable until the next billing cycle where the cap refreshes, depending on how things are set up and the hosting company's policy.

[shelomit]

If you own the picture, I see no issue really, maybe the term "hotlinking" is confusing? Not sure that's what you meant.

The issue with hotlinking is not copyright status, but bandwidth usage*--akurah has explained further. I don't have an Imgur account, but I did a quick search and it looks like they don't permit hotlinking for website assets, but do permit it on forums. In short, you should be "in the clear" ( :

*ETA: and "clicks" and advertising revenue, too, these days.