Living Within Samsara

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All text and images at this site are copyrighted by Samsara of “Living Within Samsara.” You may use any portion of anything at this site as long as attribution is used with a link back to the original article or page where you found the image or text. For more information click the “Some Rights Reserved” badge below.

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Digital Copyrights: Don’t steal someone else’s hard work unless they have given you permission. If you take something from someone withOUT permission, at least have the courtesy of attributing them their work or linking back to their site. Some very talented people struggle to earn an income on the internet and spend their precious time writing, creating or designing just to have you come along, snag their work and get credit for it….meantime, people are copying the image you stole and using it themselves and you don’t care because you stole it yourself! So then it gets into the public domain and now the author or artist is screwed out of any income making possibility just because you decided it might be “cute” on your website. So at least attribute! You never know; They may link you back just because you’d be offering them publicity! But at least give the owner of the image or text the credit. You dishonor yourself when you plagiarize, steal, or try to take credit for something that is not yours. The person you’ve stolen from may contact your ISP or your whomever and accuse you of copyright violation in mild cases, to the more severe cases in a cease and desist legal letter. If you think you’re clever and anonymous on the internet, then you’re an internet newbie or ignorant.

Stealing Bandwidth or Hotlinking. Don’t do it.

Hotlinking is when a person uses a code to render an image from my server to their website. It’s theft. I may replace the image you’re hot-linking with one that may be illegal for your website. I absolutely will replace it if I see that not even an attempt was made to try to give me credit or a link. Even with permission to use an image of mine with correct attribution doesn’t mean you may use my bandwidth too. It bogs my server down and that means I pay for it.

Leeching from other sites: Even if the owner of something [something in a zip file, an image, a video] has given you permission - like a non-commercial non-exclusive license to use their work with appropriate attribution - this does not include hotlinking from their server. You should copy the image to your own server and serve it from there unless they have explicitly stated you may hotlink it. There are many free image hosting services specifically designed for you to host the images you would like to serve from your Myspace or other free web community account or blog - where they make their money from advertising to you when you log in. I use Photobucket, for example, when I am on my Stumble blog because Stumble does not host images. Leeching really is theft so be considerate and save yourself some potential embarrassment in the process.

Are you a site owner who wants to protect your bandwidth? If your server is Apache, you can do what I do; utilize Mod_Rewrite in the .htaccess file. You’re then telling your server to either not serve files [images, zip files, etc] to certain websites or to allow serving only?to certain websites. The example I will offer is going to reference another image in its place directing them to this page.

1. You can have a lot of fun with your choice of images and remember! It’s YOUR web server the leecher is trying to pull from - you can make the image, as tacky, or as offensive as you want, or as big as you need to! If the leecher doesn’t have height or width attributes of the image they’re leeching from you, this will not be your fault will it? [Gosh I am such a Leo.] This means you could, in theory, make a 500×500 flashing purple, yellow, and lime green animation of dancing hamsters if you wanted.
2. I would advise putting the image replacement - if #1 is going to be your choice - from a server that will not cost you anything [like Photobucket] and from a server that allows hotlinking because effectually this is what you will be doing now. [But Photobucket doesn’t allow porn so if that’s the “offensive” you want, you may need another kind of server.] If your image is very big and it’s being pulled from your server then it kind of defeats the point doesn’t it? ;)
3. If #1 (revenge or teaching a lesson isn’t your thing) then I’d make a smaller sized pixel image in low KB and with your message or image and reference that from your own server. It’s so small as the bandwidth would be negligible *and* the image they try to reference will not show up on their website.
4. I would always advise giving notice to the person you’re *doing this to* after you have done it. I say this because many leechers and hotlinkers and bandwidth thieves do so out of ignorance. To let them know what you have done just may be a nice heads up thing to do. But hey, this is your life.

Let’s do it! If you don’t have an .htaccess file in the web directory you want to protect, make one. [Make one by opening a text editor like Notepad.] It will apply whatever rules you specify to all subdirectories beneath it. For example, my real life example is in the directory that houses my article images on this Wordpress platform: samsara.ihostyou.com/wp-content/uploads and it’s here as opposed to elsewhere because it was this directory that I noticed my images were being leeched though in theory it could go anywhere. But be careful! If you don’t know what .htaccess is capable of then, for God’s sake, go learn about it because I’m just trying to help a brother or a sister out. My forte is not explaining web development and server geekology.

Code follows:

ReWriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} myspace.com [OR,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} livejournal.com [OR,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} *aleechingsitehere*.blogspot.com [OR,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} *anotherhere*.com [NC]
RewriteRule .*.(gif|jpg)$ http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b398/samsara2005/theftbig.gif [R,NC]

After putting the code in your text editor, save it [- as htaccess.txt for example] and then upload it [in ASCii] to the directory you want to protect. Name it .htaccess [that is (dot)htaccess and with no extension but if you don’t know this I am POSITIVE you needn’t be doing this until you have a better understanding of .htaccess].

The above code is my personal example - that may change at any time - so it may not suit your needs. It’s telling my server to disallow all myspace.com, livejournal.com leeching, etc of .gif’s and .jpg’s but allow everyone else. It’s saying that if referenced from any of these places show theftbig.gif. I have it set up this way because I am copied and quoted frequently, with links back, and do not want to discourage people or myself from using my images for legitimate reasons elsewhere [and these people already know who they are].

If you do have an .htaccess file already in the directory that you want to protect then simply append the above code - after replacing the domains and image with your own information - to it.

Thank you for not stealing. Thank you for attributing. Thank you for not leeching.

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Commenting. I have the right to not allow or delete your comments. I will not edit your comments so if you think you shouldn’t have written something you probably should take that part out because I will simply delete it if I find it questionable. I will delete comments that flame, harass, threaten or are otherwise vulgar or breaks any law that I know of. I am not responsible for the content of comments though I will do my best to keep this a safe place to respond. You may disagree with me; Add links to your comments; Make suggestions and so forth! I value your comments.

Spam. I have two spam filters for comments in place. I may blacklist your IP. I may block your email. I may not let your comment through. I may report you to your ISP. I may report an open port to a hijacked server. I may track you down and report you criminally. So, don’t abuse my server. Thanks.

Links, Affiliates, and other off-site links.

I will do my best to make clear the links that lead offsite. I will do my best to never link something that is questionable, dishonorable, engaging in spyware, adware, tracking cookies and so forth. The policies in place to offsite links and other websites will be different than mine but be aware that if I ever gain knowledge that a website I have linked has turned over to the dark-side I will either de-link it, de-list it, or refuse sponsorship from it.

Sponsorships and paid advertisements.

Like above, I will do my level best to not accept paid advertisements for sites that I find questionable. I will block ads that I find offensive. I will disallow websites in exchange for money that I find questionable. I will do this so as to provide the best non-intrusive experience at Living Within Samsara possible. If you find something offensive or you have something to report or some concerns please contact me. I want to know your thoughts or your experience. If I have blocked you wrongly, please contact me about that too.

Content. The content at this site is influenced in no way shape or form by my sponsors or paid advertisements. If, however, I receive a donation with a reqest to write an article about something, that article will be clearly noted.

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Contact Me.

If you email me, your email address is safe. I am not a company. I am a person and only one at that. If any of these policies concern you or you want to ask a question or make a comment or complaint, email me.