Last week I noticed a small problem with my website. Usage seemed to be up a little, in particular a picture of the pantheon that now accounted for 24% of my bandwidth. Well, I then went to look at my referring pages and noticed a site that hadn’t appeared before, www.storace.it. |
| This site belongs to an Italian politician called Francesco Storace. He is the founder of a political party called La Destra (The Right), and a former member of the National Alliance. He left the NA after falling out with its leader, Fini, because he (Fini) wasn’t right wing enough. More information about Storace can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Storace |
| I took a look at Storace’s site, and one page in particular: http://www.storace.it/2008/04/11/tutti-al-pantheon/. Here’s how it used to look, click on the image for the large version:
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As you can see, he’s used a very nice picture of the Pantheon to illustrate his article. I’m particularly impressed as it’s a composite image made up from two separate shots taken in February 2004 and blended together using Adobe Photoshop. (a bit of a giveaway is on the obelisk to the right, where there’s a split a third of the way up.) |
| How do I know so much about this image? Because it’s mine. That picture is my property, which I have published as part of a website about Rome. He has no right to use it without permission, but what is worse is that he is not only using it, but has hotlinked it meaning that I have to pay the bandwidth costs as well. |
To find out more about hotlinking go to either of these two sites: http://altlab.com/hotlinking.html http://www.webweaver.nu/html-tips/hotlinking.shtml
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| Normally I don’t make too much fuss. If someone e-mails me and asks for permission to use a picture of mine for a project, coursework, or even as part of their personal pages I usually say yes. In fact, I’m quite pleased that a total stranger likes my work and wants to use it; I find it rather a compliment. In this case however things are slightly different. No permission was asked, and the image is hotlinked, meaning I have to pay for it. |
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| What’s a bloke to do then? |
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| In the first instance I left a polite notice on his website. |
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I decided to leave it a week and give him time to take it off. A week has now passed, and my picture is still up there. |
Click here to go to part one |
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