depends, but yes, it is. Ultimately the only squeeky clean thing you can do is provide a text link to the site where the picture is hosted. That certainly is taking the matter too far even in my opinion.
True, true. 
As long as people say “This is where the pic comes from” then I’m happy to let it go.
And where would we be without a caption competition every now and again? 
edited to add a point:
You know nothing for nothing, but you two weren’t around when we started this thing called Kirupa. If I recall correctly, Kirupa made a lengthy post about exactly this subject, condemning it on the board. I have not been being a stickler about such things exactly because people keep whinning about all the fun being run out of the board. The fact is, people will still be able to have fun here without posting the same picture 5 to 20 times in a row, post after post, all linked to an outside source.
David:
I am sick and tired of you throwing this in everyone’s face, like you have more authority, know more about, are a better person, because you have been here longer.
Do not call me a fool, just because I agree with Phil (why else did you pick his thread out of all the rest?).
Seriously David, you are here 10% of the time anymore, and you want to add more rules? How about we try to handle the problems we have rather than the ones that “get my goat.”
I want to go on the record as saying this is stupid, probably motivated by something other than “misappropriated bandwidth,” and brought by a control freak.
David:
go have some fun somewhere, get laid, whatever it is for you to relax. This world is uptight as it is, we don’t need your help to cinch the noose any more.
EVERYONE here has hotlinked to images, I almost can guarantee it, let’s not be a Kirupa Thug Crew, let’s let the members and mods have fun.
I have been asked several times, “why are the mods cracking down on everyone lately, has there been a warning from Kirupa?”
I am not happy about this thread at all. Do not expect me to “police” David’s pet-peave.
Rev
I’ve had friends billed extra fees from bandwidth over-usage. One was a free graphics/desktop site and she found out through her logs and stats that people were hotlinking. Not only did she have to pay for the extra bandwidth, the rest of her sites slowed down or did not display at all because of the immense traffic. I used to run a free graphics site - people can take any image they want just as long as they don’t “hotlink.” And people still did it… some even had the nerve to hotlink graphic set zip files along with the thumbnails and have it available for download on THEIR graphic sites! Fortunately their sites weren’t popular enough that I did not suffer the fate of my friend above. Regardless, that’s my bandwidth; I paid for it and they took it without permission.
That is all I wanted to say.
By the way, employing anti-right-click scripts and the like does absolutely nothing to fully protect images. I used them previously and that only led to an attack (the thief even stated that he was specifically inclined to steal the image because of the preventative measure I took). The only way is to password protect your directories… forcing your site visitors to have to login to access your site. Or you can shut down your site altogether. That’s no fun.
Well there are Pros and Cons to this. The problem is, this will be a waste of time for us to enforce. What shall we do - go into each thread and delete the images hoping that the original creator finds a place to upload it? I think the current method of providing a link to the original creator may help.
I would rather that all of us use our times posting or having fun instead of making enemies out of a few members who already eye us with some suspicion :evil:
As rev mentioned earlier, enforcing such a draconian rule does ruin the fun of this place 
As much as I hate to say it, I think all this was totally unnecessary. I was going to give my opinion about all this, but I hate choosing sides, so i’ll keep to myself. Once this has all settled, may we please throw this in Forbidden. I hate being reminded of arguments between mods.
