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Foreword Bandwidth stealing is a serious offense, yet some webmasters do not seem to realize that it's a problem. This article will give you some insight. After reading it, you will know what bandwidth stealing is, why you shouldn't do it, how to avoid doing it, how to detect and prevent it, and how to deal with the offenders. Owners of award programs are in a unique position to combat this problem. We are frequently visiting sites, and there are measures we can take when we come across one that is stealing bandwidth. Learn and apply these measures. By working together, we can all help to reduce the problem. What Is Bandwidth? When you surf the Internet or download a file, you are using bandwidth. Every time you click on a link to a Web page, your server sends a message to the remote server where the page is located and requests the page. The remote server, in turn, sends back all the files associated with that page. This transfer of data is called "bandwidth." What Is Bandwidth Stealing? You created a website and all the elements associated with that site, such as graphics, HTML files, sounds, and so forth. Under the copyright laws of most countries in the world, they belong to you, the creator. They are your property and nobody is allowed to copy or use them without your permission. One day, while checking your server logs, you discover that the graphic you created as a link to a resource in your site has been accessed more times than the page it's located on. "How can this be," you wonder. "Shouldn't it be loaded the same number of times as the page?" Later you're looking through the list of referral sites in your server logs. Out of curiosity, you click on the link to a site that referred the page you were wondering about. There, in the middle of the page, is a copy of your graphic and it's linked to your page. "Isn't that wonderful," you think, forgetting the copyright issue for the moment. "He's linking to my site." Still curious, and perhaps a little bit proud, you open and examine the source code for this page. Guess what! The webmaster did not store the graphic on his server. To save his own bandwidth, he has coded the link to call it from your server. This is called "bandwidth stealing." How Does It Effect You? When you obtained server space for your website, was it free? No, of course not. It's probably hosted by an ISP, and they charge you a fee for this service. The amount of the fee will vary depending on a number of factors, but let's say that you are paying $20 per month for one or two megabytes of storage space and a maximum of one gigabyte of data transfer. Sounds like a lot, doesn't it? For many sites it's more than adequate, but if your site starts to get a lot of visitors, and if you have some large files, you'll discover that one gigabyte of data transfer is not as much as it sounds. So what happens when you exceed the limit? Well, that depends on your ISP, but it usually involves in a penalty for the transfer of additional data. How bad can this be? Let's say 200 sites have a page with a graphical link to your site and the graphic, which weighs in at 15K, is being accessed from your server. Now let's assume that each of these 200 pages is getting 2,000 visitors per month. Based on this example, your server will be transferring an additional 6 gigabytes of data per month. The bill for this data transfer will be sent to you, and it could cost you a lot of money! Why You Shouldn't Steal "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If you don't think it's right for other people to steal your graphics and run up your server costs, then don't do it to them. Some webmasters have been forced to close their sites because of the additional cost. How would you feel if this happened to you? There are other reasons to avoid bandwidth stealing. For one, some ISP's will shut down your website if they find out you are stealing bandwidth. They will never host it again. For another, it can have a negative effect on your visitors and your website. Let's say you have some graphics in your page that are being accessed from remote servers. Each of these graphics involves a remote call, which takes time. If the remote server is busy, it will take even more time. If the remote server is down, the graphic will not load and display. If the graphic is moved or removed by the owner, you will have a broken graphic. How does this affect your visitors? Most of them will simply go away if your page takes too long to load. If your page does load within a reasonable period of time, most of them will end up with a poor impression of your site if they see broken graphics. All your efforts to create a good website will be wasted. Aside from the ethical, financial and practical implications, bandwidth stealing is a serious offense. In many countries it's a crime, with the punishment ranging from a fine to imprisonment. If the problem continues to escalate, no doubt we will start to hear about webmasters being prosecuted for bandwidth stealing. How To Avoid Stealing Simply put, you should never access a graphic, sound or any other type of file from a remote server, unless you are invited or required to by the owner of the remote website. Here are some examples of the wrong and right ways to load graphics: Wrong: <IMG SRC="http://www.remoteserver.com/graphic.gif"> The first "Right" example assumes your graphic is located in the same subdirectory on your server as the HTML document, which is often the case. If the graphic is located in a different subdirectory, then you must specify the path. For example: Right: <IMG SRC="subdirectory/graphic.gif"> How To Detect Stealing We have already looked at one way of discovering who is accessing graphics from your server — the list of referrers in your server logs. But this only works if people are clicking on the links in the referring sites to visit your page. If nobody clicks on the links, or if the graphics are not linked to your site, then there will be no telltale entries in your server logs. Another way to find bandwidth stealers is to use the "image" search feature at AltaVista. Just enter one of the following search terms in the search box: image:yourURL, or image:yourgraphic.gif The first example will find all sites that are accessing an image from your server. The second will return all sites that are loading the image you named (yourgraphic.gif) in the search box. Of course, these searches will only find the sites that have been indexed by AltaVista. There is no way to search all the websites in the world. Talk to your ISP and find out if they have any detection software installed on their servers. The technology for detecting bandwidth stealing is steadily improving, and some of it will prevent theft by blocking or redirecting illicit requests for files. If your ISP has this kind of software installed, they may be able to help you. How To Deal With Stealers The simplest way to deal with bandwidth stealers is to send them a polite email. Explain the problem it is causing for you and ask them to either remove the graphic or store it on their own servers. Many of them will comply with your request. If this fails, send a complaint to the ISP that is hosting the offender's website. To find the email address, go to WHOIS and search the NSI Registrar database. Enter the offender's domain name in the search box to look up all the details of that domain, including the contact people, email and postal addresses, and phone numbers of the offender and the host. You can also search by name, organization, server, mailbox and keyword. Use RIPE to find ISP addresses in Europe and APNIC for addresses in Asia and the Pacific. If you can't find the address you're looking for at these sites, try the Root-Zone Whois Information at IANA. It will give you contact information for all the registration authorities in countries around the world. As a last resort, phone the bandwidth stealer or initiate legal action. The former will probably get you some verbal abuse, for people who deliberately steal bandwidth can get defensive, so you should be prepared. The latter will cost you money if your action is not successful. Guidelines For Using Graphics If you want to use a graphic or any other file from another website, you must first obtain permission from the owner of the site. Once approved, you must store the graphic on your own server, give credit to the original artist or author, and provide a link to the owner's website. There are exceptions, of course. The two most obvious exceptions are counters and banners, which require you to access the graphics from remote servers and which do not require any credits. Another exception is sites that invite you to use their graphics, usually for the purpose of linking to their sites. You do not have to ask for permission, but you should follow the other guidelines. Most award programs expect you to display their award graphics. If your website wins some awards, you should always store the graphics on your own server and link them to the award programs. It is the least you can do in return for the time it takes them to visit and evaluate your website. To protect yourself, keep a record of all the graphics you are using from other websites. The record should contain the following type of information:
If you get requests for permission to use your graphics, or other types of files, you should keep a record of them as well. It's easy to forget whom you gave permission to when you are always busy. You don't want to wrongly accuse someone of stealing your graphics, and keeping proper records will help you avoid it. We Can All Help! As the Internet continues to grow, bandwidth stealing is emerging as a serious problem, especially among new and uninformed webmasters. Some people do not realize that stealing bandwidth is a problem. Others, believe it or not, do not know they have to get permission to use your graphics. It's up to us, as responsible webmasters, to educate these people. We should always be on the lookout for bandwidth stealing. When encountered, we should email the offender to explain why it's a problem and point out the potential consequences. Failing that, we should notify the owner of the graphic that is being remotely loaded, if we can find out who owns it. Owners of award programs are in a unique position to combat this problem. We can refuse to give awards to people who are stealing bandwidth. If you discover an applicant is stealing, don't give him your award ... and don't be silent. Take the time to explain why his site does not qualify. If he wants your award badly enough, which is quite possible, he will listen to what you say. By working together, we can make a difference! Copyright © 2001 Richard Berends, Maestro Awards - All rights reserved. |
the name and URL of the owner's website