Fuddruckers Called Out on Hotlinking 668
naught writes "Fuddruckers, a hamburger chain, hotlinked to a flash game developer's Burgertime clone on their 'Fuddrockers' page. When the developer noticed an abnormal amount of traffic coming from their website, he decided to let the company know how he felt -- and maybe teach them about hotlinking.." From the post: "So, I redirected everything coming from Fuddruckers.com. (learned all about .htaccess files also... neat!) Wrote a nice little message pointing out how incredibly stupid their web developer is. And then redirected the main page to a pleasant little website showing photographs of slaughterhouses. And also opened up some more popups, for those that don't have popup blockers."
Hotlink THIS (Score:1, Interesting)
Steal the bandwidth, or steal the work? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuddruckers, take notice of this practice... such a hard concept... of downloading the game and HOSTING IT YOURSELF... versus stealing other's bandwidth...
Under some theories of netiquette, linking to an HTML page that references a Flash file is more polite than copying the Flash file to your own server because the former is normal use of the World Wide Web and the latter is copyright infringement. To put it into RIAA terms, "stealing" bandwidth is preferable to "stealing" a work of authorship.
and the point is... (Score:1, Interesting)
uhmm, you know, sort of like slashdot articles where 4 lines of incoherent mischaracteration and a link bring down some hobbyist's case mod page, thereby allowing OSTG to make bazillions from banner ads.
How come slashdot doesn't get more slaughterhouse redirects?
I think I would have started by sending a rather large bill to Fudruckers...
Re:Owned (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how the slaughterhouse people feel =) (Score:5, Interesting)
What would have been cooler is having all the Slaughterhouse websites retaliate against the Burgertime guy and call him names for using up their content/bandwidth.
Now that's a story =)
Re:www.fuddrruckers.com (Score:2, Interesting)
Seems pretty stupid to me.
Re:HOT Linking isn't linking (Score:1, Interesting)
Nice. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a similar problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
Family restaurant, huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
What kind of "family" restaurant uses such an obvious spoonerism? The same kind of company that thinks it's cool to push "FCUK" right into the faces of my children in the high street.
I also think the guy had a valid complaint, but his reaction is that of an utter tit.
I hope they both disappear up each other's arses in a spectacular feat of Escher-like physics.
You are 100% wrong. (Score:3, Interesting)
If someone steals what I am saying, and puts it on their own site, then sues me when i change what I say, screw them!
That is not what happened. It is more like if you have a website and post words on that website. I read your website, and put a link on my page to your page.
Fuddruckers can sue. They have damages. This guy went out of his way to cause as much harm to Fuddruckers as he could. This guy knew about the "theft" and he did nothing, he waited for a three day weekend to show how smart he was, how he out-smarted a big company. Boo-hoo.
There is a principle of law in the USA. Once you become aware that someone is damaging you, you have a right to tell them to stop. If you don't tell them to stop, tough crap on your part. It is no different than if there is a small river or creek on your property. It is near my property line too, but the water is on your property. One day you look out the window and see me with a pump, pumping water from the river on my garden. Instead of telling me to stop, you wait a few months, until I start getting fruit, then you put poison in the watter supply, to kill off everything.
You have an obligation to stop whatever harm is happening as soon as you discover the wrong doing. Otherwise you are consenting. You know the action the other person is doing, and yet you don't try to stop it, you don't ask them to stop.
A good example would be if the cable company found out you were stealing one of the premium channels. Instead of cutting off your service, the cable company lets you keep getting service, for 2 years. Then they slap you with a $500 bill for the channel. The cable company had a duty to say "no" the moment they discovered the theft.
Re:To have the right... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's like someone on ebay hotlinking to your images from their auction - if your going to steal content, at least have the common courtesy to host it yourself.
I think what he did was both funny and fully justified, it might even inspire me to get round to redirecting hotlinked ebay images to a banner saying "FREE FED-EX SHIPPING ON THIS ORDER"
Re:www.fuddrruckers.com (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Steal the bandwidth, or steal the work? (Score:3, Interesting)
Screw that. I've had my own content stolen and misused in the past. If I was looking for a web developer, this is the kinda guy I'd want: one that can take a sneaking, thieving idiot like that and turn the tables. Kinda reminds me of baiting Nigerian email scammers... (sniffs back a tear)
Way to go, man!
speaking of stealing work (Score:1, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obviously he wasn't a Slashdotter... (Score:3, Interesting)
You can read about it in this blog entry [xcski.com].
Re:Steal the bandwidth, or steal the work? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:There's stupid and then there's stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
And he redirected to a BURGER-RELATED site, so I don't see the problem.
Y'know, this whole discussion has amused me. We have people vehemently arguing that one side or the other should bugger off and die due to the massive evil of their actions.
Fudruckers could have asked permission. They chose not to. He could have made a few bucks off this. He chose not to. End of story - We can all either point and laugh, either at his stupidity or cleverness, doesn't matter which - But it pretty much ends there.
A person I don't know did something to a company I've never heard of. Woo woo. Next story, please.
So is a slashdotting illegal? (Score:2, Interesting)
So someone using your bandwidth is taking your property.
Then why haven't the operators of news aggregators such as Slashdot been taken to court over their front-page links to sites? Is it a case of "it's not illegal if you don't get caught"?
Re:The word has been redefined (Score:3, Interesting)
Was it impolite and deceitful? Definitely, but not much more so than the response.
Re:Obviously he wasn't a Slashdotter... (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think it would be too hard to compare any given image to one particular image.
Re:The word has been redefined (Score:2, Interesting)
The difference is that Fuddruckers embedded his flash file in their html while he redirected the visitors to the site with the slaughterhouse pics. Also, the purpose of that site is probably to make a statement about keeping people from eating food from places like Fuddruckers so it isn't unlikely that they welcomed the Fuddruckers traffic.
Re:Furthermore... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Steal the bandwidth, or steal the work? (Score:3, Interesting)
In anything, from business to the arts to sports, there's going to be a top 5%. And a bottom 5%. And everything in between. But of course, your world view precludes admitting that in any of those categories those people worked to get to that position, or that they contribute anything, or that they make jobs for "hard working americans" possible.
Profit. Yeah, the nasty p-word. Never mind that it makes future investment possible. Never mind that half the stocks in the US are owned in some fashion by the middle class, and that profits fuel pension funds and retirement plans. Heck, never mind that "profits" pay employees salaries and benefits.
As to the "drones", that's my nickname for those guys who, in school, thought it was smart to skip class and mastered instead in high-school football. Guess what? Actions have consequences.
There may be extenuating circumstances for some, but by and large if your career options are an auto assembly line, stockboy, the front lines of the fast food industry, or a greeter at WalMart, then you are in all probability reaping that which you've sown.
FuddRucker.com is not link or redirect to Google! (Score:2, Interesting)