Sponsor content & Hammering the server

Can I, without upsetting a sponsor, Link directly to an image?

I have seen many people post and link to a gallery from many site types but I don’t know if I have seen anyone directly link to an image.

I know a lot of people want a lower click/higher buy ratio and this would push your ratios into a reverse order because the viewer would need to click a back button or close the window and click the link you have set up for the tour or sign-up.

I think part of my question also has to do with bandwidth and hammering the server.

As with the GWW milestone post, when 15 try to post at the same time, a serious 30 second lag was bogging down the forum and made for an un-pleasurable experience.

My reason for asking – With 2257, 4472 and who knows what next, affiliate program terms stating “we don’t give 2257 information to our affiliates” and the recent post about an image shown under a url location on the browser.

I can see some people asking “why don’t you just link to the tour or FHG” and it’s a great question IF you have a site that follows the style of a linklist, TGP, etc…

But for those who run sites based on one or two photos from a set and an option to see the tour should you like the model, linking to the FHG or tour is outside of the established relationship with our traffic.

Any info would be great

Craig

a few sponsors supply free hosted thumbs but if they don't offer them then most likely using the pics on their servers is a great way to get terminated from the program.

btw, 2257 still applies to the webmasters even if the thumbs/pics and hosted elsewhere. the law refers to pics and videos on your site - it doesn't specify where they are hosted.

Upon reading a few affiliate agreements, I can see where some state “Please don’t link directly to these photos/videos” within the affiliate area.

This however does not answer nor entertain the notion of whether one could link directly to a photo from a non member’s area such as a model or preview section of the site.

Bass,

Bass

Not trying to buck the system, images.google.com will render a thumbnail, a link from the thumbnail and the site hosting the thumbnail within a set of frame displays.

Perfect 10 vs. Google – This case did touch the nature of Thumbnails but only on “copyright” and not record compliance with hosting lewd and/or obscene thumbnails.

I have found a few notes pointing out, a simple thumbnail of CP on your computer counts as 1 image.

However, I reiterate, Google does this daily.

Example when I use the keyword “Porn”
http://images.google.com/images?svnu...rn&btnG=Search

I guess I will never have a definitive answer because a case has not been brought to court on the true nature of 2257 compliance and the use of a thumbnail for directing traffic has yet to happen.

I guess it’s just a “Keep on truckin” situation, who gets hit and a follow-up of the outcome.

copyright has nothing to do with 2257. talk to a lawyer since you're talking about your freedeom. the 3 i talked to agreed that a pic on your site does not have to be hosted by you in order to be considered part of the site. maybe - just maybe - you could try to pull that off in court, but it would certainly have to get to court for a judge to interpret the law.

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Originally Posted by basschick

copyright has nothing to do with 2257.

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As I stated: "This case did touch the nature of Thumbnails but only on “copyright” and not record compliance with hosting lewd and/or obscene thumbnails."

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Talk to a lawyer since you're talking about your freedeom.

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Always the definitive answer and while it's the correct one, this is adult and it's assumed by such lawyers, you have deep pockets from day one.

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The 3 i talked to agreed that a pic on your site does not have to be hosted by you in order to be considered part of the site.

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I think it's clearly obvious that "anything" seen "on" your site is a part of your site.



But this leads to a more detailed understanding of a "thumbnail"

• Is it the scaled down image unedited.
• A cropped and scaled down image of just the models headshot.
• All the above.

It "seems" the conversation has been based on assumption of a scaled down version of the original without editing.

Now I wish I could find the thread for reference stating something along the lines of, a panel of lawyers would couldn't agree, Compliance and if a photo, though non nude, used to promote a site was from a set with nude photos, the affiliate posting the non-nude would need the compliance too.

Chad will give you a detailed explanation of 2257, both from his viewpoint and from the viewpoint of other industry attorneys, for a pretty reasonable price. While I'm sure he appreciates clients with deep pockets, I know that he also accepts clients without deep pockets :)

As to the question of the content itself, I know that we (Gaybucks) will host any page(s) that affiliates create which are promoting our content. We started doing this to bypass the 2257 problem, as it's a page on our server on one of our domains, and we can put the content on one of our servers with the capacity to handle pretty much whatever traffic you throw at it.

I'm sure there are other programs that will do similar things.

We wouldn't want an affiliate linking out of our main site or members area, both because we wouldn't want the bandwidth drain on the member's area server and because of 2257 concerns.

Technically, hotlinked images are not a part of your site. Just as RSS feeds are not yours either. Nor are advertiser's iFrames. But that doesn't mean you are in the clear.

Think of it as you painting a picture, but someone else does a section of the canvas. Your name is signed to it, so everyone will think you were responsible for the whole thing ("whats under the address bar").

I wouldn't hotlink to XXX (or even use RSS) and consider this to be risk free given how things appear on the surface to people who may not be looking at source code.

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Originally Posted by Matt 26z

Technically, hotlinked images are not a part of your site. Just as RSS feeds are not yours either. Nor are advertiser's iFrames. But that doesn't mean you are in the clear.

Think of it as you painting a picture, but someone else does a section of the canvas. Your name is signed to it, so everyone will think you were responsible for the whole thing ("whats under the address bar").

I wouldn't hotlink to XXX (or even use RSS) and consider this to be risk free given how things appear on the surface to people who may not be looking at source code.

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Exactly. The way several attorneys have described it (in reductionist form) is to assume that Mabel from Knoxville is in the jury box, and consider that you don't want to have to try and explain to Mabel about hotlinking or anything else... so if the URL at the top isn't pointing to your server, it's pretty easy to explain that, but if the URL is pointing to your server, but an image, video, I-frame, or whatever is hosting somebody else's content... well, you may have a hard time getting that across to Mabel.