Hotlinking Legality

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[]Is hotlinking images legal?
[
]If so, who get’s in trouble if you hotlink an image of a photographer that sues? You or the person you hotlinked to?
[*]I know Youtube is pretty good about deleting stolen content. Sites like metacafe, however, have a ton of illegal stuff. If you embed a flash video of the stolen video, who is to blame when you get sued?
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