Pirates of the Bandwidth

[ForrestGump]

I still don't know the whole, true, unedited truth about this whole bandwidth-pirate thing, but I did make myself a nice little Sony ImageStation picture palace at the suggestion of DU-ers.

Trouble is that Sony just deactivated it, and their messages are totally cryptic as to whether I was terminated with extreme prejudice because I linked directly to the images or because the images were offensive. Given that the images are all PG-13 or tamer, and given that I do herein link directly to the images rather than to an entire album, I suspect that it's the latter.

How do others here who use ImageStation manage to post pictures without linking to them? Is there some magic thing I've missed out on? They say I can reactivate if I remove the X-rated pictures (that I don't have) or stop linking to my images, but there hardly seems any point to that. In the meantime, my current signatire picture seems to live on. But ImageStation sounds fundamentally unsuited for use hereabouts.

Any other suggestions? Or am I destined to yo-ho-ho about the Internet, pillaging bandwidth as I go?

[SOteric]

1. I use

a site either that I pay for or a free site that I've been granted the use of, then copy and store the images (only the free non-copyrighted ones) on either the paid or free site. Some paid sites have rules discouraging this practice, and they will tell you so. Mine does not, - if you pay them well enough.

The thing with pirating bandwidth is: if you post in the Lounge, for example, and your post contains a link to a picture on a server at "AcmeSite," all those viewing your post will activate the link to AcmeSite. That slows down AcmeSite, especially if it's a popular post and a lot of people link to it, and especially if AcmeSite is already popular and having trouble keeping up with their traffic.

Some places, like maybe "AjaxSite" specifically allocate server space to hosting and serving images. -Those Yahoo picture sites are good examples. Some will offer this space for the tradeoff of a registration (which will enable them to spam you into the stoneage) and some will sell the access to the server space, and probably spam you, too.

[ForrestGump]

2. SOteric always had a way of explaining things

so I could sorta, more-or-less, after a fashion, aproximate an understanding of them. I think I get it, now, this whole bandwidth mystery. And now I shall venture forth on the quest for storage. Yo ho ho.

Thanks, DU's pre-eminent pun-dit. :-)