What is bandwidth theft and why shouldn’t I do it?
If you are using images on your blog that are located at someone else’s blog or website, you are stealing their bandwidth.

In other words, when you use someone else’s URL address in your html codes to display an image on your site, you are stealing their bandwidth.

If you are stealing bandwidth, you are probably uneducated about the crime you are committing.  If you’re a blogger, you’re probably a victim of bandwidth theft.

A Crime? Yes, it is a crime. The person whose site the image is on that you are linking to for the source of the image is paying to display their image on your site.

What is bandwidth?
You go to a blog/website and see text and images.  Each time you view these, you are receiving a certain amount of information from the blog owners server**.  The amount of information you receive is considered bandwidth or traffic.  Each month or year, the blog owner pays money for a specified amount of bandwidth.  So each time an image that “lives” on their server is viewed, they are paying for it to be seen.

Lets say you found a blog button you want to display on your blog.  You figure out what the URL for the image is, and you insert that URL into your blog to show the image.  Every time someone views your blog, you are using that other blog owners bandwidth.  Which at the end of the month, they have to pay for!

How am I supposed to be doing it?
When you find an image on the internet that you want to display on your blog, you should save the image to your computer and then upload it to your blog or server.

ADD A BUTTON TO YOUR BLOG
Saving a blog button* or image to put onto your blog.

1. Move your cursor over the image
on the left.
2. Depending on your browser and computer type, right click
or left click with your mouse to show a pop-up menu.
3. Choose “save picture as” or “save image as”.
4. Save this image anywhere on your computer. (and remember where you put it)
5. Upload the image to your blog.
6. Insert the image into your blog and make it a link to the blog you want people to go to.

“I’m sorry!  I didn’t know what I was doing!”
If you are a bandwidth thief and didn’t know until now, follow the instructions above to correct the situation.

How do I find out if I’m a victim?
If you have access to web statistics you can find out there.  Look for images viewed without showing “page views”.  You can also use a search engine by searching for the URL of your image.What do I do if I’m a victim?

Another thing you can do is check copyscape.com to see how many websites have stolen your text!

use this banner to warn off offenders!

* a “blog button” is simply an image that has a URL or link associated to it
** a server is a computer in which all blog/website files are stored, the owner of the site usually has to pay for this service.