Major Newspapers Hotlink Images from Unsuspecting Companies; Drain Bandwidth and Server Resources Without Permission

Some of the nation’s best known newspapers are stealing bandwidth off unsuspecting companies and server operators through a practice known as “hotlinking,” our own investigation has revealed.
The newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, the Austin American-Statesman have contracted BlogBurst, a service of Pluck Corporation, to re-publish the content of independent bloggers. The image files, used by the bloggers, are often stored elsewhere, such as on photo-sharing websites, free weblog hosts, and others. When displayed by the newspapers using the hotlinking technique (i.e. displaying the images without storing the actual files), newspapers use third parties’ resources without permission. Examples below illustrate hotlinking by the newspapers, a technique widely despised on the internet:
1. This article over at the San Antonio Express-News contains an image stored by Blogger.com, a free weblog hosting service of Google Corporation (image location: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4896/707/1600/frey_ch2.jpg). Did the San Antonio Express-News get permission from Google to use the company’s server resources to display the picture? Likely not.
2. This article over at the Austin American-Statesman hotlinks to a file stored at Flickr.com, a well-known photo-sharing site that belongs to Yahoo Corp. (file location: http://www.flickr.com/photos/63334078@N00/141909052/)
Does the use of this image file by the newspaper constitute stealing of Yahoo’s resources? We certainly think so.
3. If you think that these newspapers steal only from big and powerful corporations, think again! On this Austin American-Statesman page, the image is actually stored on a server that belongs to Sullivan Street Bakery from New York City (image file location: http://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/bakery/provisions/images/colomba/colomba.jpg). Bad practice, indeed.
4. On this page at the San Francisco Chronicle victim is the blogger: all images are hotlinked from blogger’s directory (files location: http://blog.stonegrooves.net/images/africa/).
We believe, as we have stated before, that newspapers have to rethink their association with BlogBurst, a service designed around hotlinking. Described by some as a bridge between bloggers and the traditional media, this service is nothing more than a parasite that robs bloggers of their content, without financial reimbursement and real benefits. It is also clear that the service robs unsuspected third parties off their resources.
We believe that the nation’s major newspapers should not and cannot remain being accomplices in fleecing bloggers and others for profit. Respect in online journalism should be led by the newspapers. In addition, upholding the publishing rights of everyone and not infringing on the resources of others, should be newspapers’ top priority.
FLASHBACKS:
They Own the Aggregator, Now (They Think) They Own the Content
Beware BlogBurst: A “Derivative Work” Decoy; Nation’s Main Newspapers Continue to Steal Bloggers’ Bandwidth (part 2)
BlogBurst Outrage: Broken Promises; Nation’s Newspapers Continue Stealing Bandwidth (part 3)