Every once in a while I like to quickly scan through my stats for PtF and see where the links are coming from, how people are finding me, and so forth. I've been checking them a lot more lately because I joined a new forum and I'm curious if anyone's curious. Heh. So I check them last night and find a new link and off I go to check. It took me a few look-overs of her site before I realized that the picture she had used to illustrate that she was talking about monkey bars was my monkey bars picture.

Hotlinked. Without attribution. Without permission. The fuck.

This is the second time I've had one of my images hotlinked without permission and I'm pretty pissed off about it. It's not even really the theft of my bandwidth that gets to me. It's the bullshit arrogance that says my art is theirs to take, to use. That my copyright means nothing, that my little "If you want to use anything, don't steal, ask. Thanks." is just so many letters on a screen.

I put my photography online so that people can look at it. So that people can enjoy something beautiful the same as I have. It's a way to both show off what I do and keep it for myself. My photography doesn't lie forgotten in the bottom of a shoebox under my bed anymore. What I don't do is put my art out there for people to use elsewhere. I don't put it out there to illustrate that someone made out on the monkey bars last weekend.

They also don't ask. How fucking hard is it to open up an email client, put in my email address and say "Hey? Could I use this picture of monkey bars for an entry in my journal? Please." Hmmm? Before I started getting as sick of people that expect and demand stuff for nothing as I am now, I would have been thrilled to say yes. Now I'm more likely to say no. And that's really sad.

Maybe this is my lesson to learn this winter. To learn about the many faces of theft, the many ways people steal from each other and how I feel about it. I've stopped a friendship over the theft of my time and willingness to share this winter. I still have to come to terms with the theft by her of my $80 DVD set. That won't be solved until I get it back, most likely by re-purchasing another set. That one burns.

Then there's the theft of my work. The cigar band label tutorial. That sorry piece of my generosity has been passed around without attribution several times that I know of, and guaranteed many more that I don't. The thing that created so much in the way of demands (without offers of payment) and headaches. I still don't know what to say about it to the people that still ask where it is and can't they please just get a copy because they really need it.

And most current the theft of my bandwidth and my art. I pay for this domain. I pay for my hosting. I pay for the tools of my art, the cameras, the film, the batteries. I'm just talking about what costs cash money. I haven't even started on about my time, which I value more than money. And these lazy fucks steal that from me.

So last night I fixed it so that nobody can use any images on PtF except me. Nobody. I can't remember if that will break some legitimate uses, but at this point I don't care. I'm finished with playing nice with thieves.