History Main / HotlinkedImageSwitch

* A 2004 Website/LiveJournal AprilFoolsDay prank called "[[http://web.archive.org/web/20070921085433/http://moroveus.livejournal.com/138722.html Operation: Jour de Poisson]]" featured a user spreading an icon in apparent support of the phrase "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance... switching the image to one supporting the exact opposite stance on April 1.

* [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/this-is-why-you-dont-steal-from-cracked Seen here]] is Website/{{Cracked}}'s example, where a Spanish-language website had taken their entire article, including hotlinked images.

* Inverted on Wiki/ThisVeryWiki; attempting to hotlink ''other'' websites' images here results in a simple "No hotlinked images, please" warning instead. This is, among other things, a measure to avoid falling victim to the above shenanigans.

On [[TheInternet the Internet]], there are a bunch of cool images. Most people are fine if they are spread and displayed, should the proper permissions and bandwidth be in play.

* The forces of [[ImageBoards Anonymous]] used this tactic against the Guardian newspaper when it leeched a picture taken at a protest against the Church of Scientology from Britchan. They responded with [[ShockSite Goatse]]. The exact course of events is documented in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjNzXSQoGY a YouTube video]].

* ''Ex Astris Scientia'' was infamous for having an anti-hotlinking filter so trigger-happy that not only could it happen with normal, not-showing-the-image, links to the image (not unknown elsewhere, and not entirely unreasonable given how some bots work), it was not unknown for people browsing ''the site itself'' having images blocked by it.

* Jameth, a user of Encyclopedia Dramatica, keeps an eye on his bandwidth and if enough people hotlink to an image, he'll replace it with a photo of four black men being lynched with the suitably offensive message "NO NIGGERS" printed on it, invoking the stereotype of black people stealing things. It's bad enough that it won't even be linked to here.

* ''WebComic/TheOatmeal'' had the [[http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/28/cartoonist-the-oatmeal-trolls-huffpo-over-images-published-sans-permission Huffington Post]] hotlink to some of his images. He first hit them with a polite letter asking them not to along with a graph showing his monthly bandwith costs. When that failed he swapped it for "a butt and a pee pee".

* The evil forces of [[ImageBoards Anonymous]] used this tactic against the Guardian newspaper when it leeched a picture taken at a protest against the Church of Scientology from Britchan. They responded with [[ShockSite Goatse]]. The exact course of events is documented in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjNzXSQoGY a YouTube video]].

* ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'': The "National Organization for Marriage", an anti-gay-marriage group, hot-linked a [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2144 comic from his site.]] The author responded by changing the image to one [[http://twitpic.com/3w7b1j supporting gay marriage]].
* Jason Scott, the owner of the textfiles.com domain, hosted a "Grim Reaper Holding an Hourglass" image, [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/989 popularly hotlinked]] from Website/MySpace (usually as a background for people's blogs), but 400 hotlinks/hour was a bit too much, so he [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1011 replaced it with]] [[ShockSite Goatse]]. He later published [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1376 some metrics]] showing how the download statistics for the file had taken a sudden plunge.
* A 2004 Website/LiveJournal AprilFoolsDay prank called "[[http://web.archive.org/web/20070921085433/http://moroveus.livejournal.com/138722.html Operation: Jour de Poisson]]" featured a user spreading an icon in apparent support of the phrase "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance... switching the image to one supporting the exact opposite stance on April 1.
* The webmaster of Cockeyed.com has an entire page of [[http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/imposter/imposter.html examples of dealing with leechers.]] In one case, he replaced the image with a "certificate of achievement" for "amazing blowjobs" with the leecher's name on it. Another time, someone used his photo on the eBay "about me" page, so the webmaster added some text beneath that called the guy out for stealing photos and selling pirated movies.
* The Website/MySpace page of 2008 Presidential candidate John [=McCain=] featured an update template which didn't give the requested credit to its designer, and leeched images from his site. He responded by replacing it with [[http://mike.newsvine.com/_news/2007/03/27/633799-hacking-john-mccain a fake message from John supporting gay marriage]].
* The ''VideoGame/EveOnline'' WMG section of this very wiki once hotlinked an image to the new galaxy introduced in ''Apocrypha''. Upon finding it hotlinked everywhere, the author changed it to an image begging for the Naglfar-class Dreadnought to be buffed.
* The evil forces of [[ImageBoards Anonymous]] used this tactic against the Guardian newspaper when it leeched a picture taken at a protest against the Church of Scientology from Britchan. They responded with [[ShockSite Goatse]]. The exact course of events is documented in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjNzXSQoGY a YouTube video]].
* iMockery would replace the hotlinked image with an obnoxiously long gif that stretched the browser to massive proportions. The text would chide you for hotlinking.

* ''Ex Astris Scientia'' was infamous for having an anti-hotlinking filter so trigger-happy that not only could it happen with normal, not-showing-the-image, links to the image (not unknown elsewhere, and not entirely unreasonable given how some bots work), it was not unknown for people browsing ''the site itself'' having images blocked by it.

* When Website/{{Something Awful}}'s paywall went up during the finale of the ''VisualNovel/DanganRonpa'' LetsPlay, they discovered people on Website/{{Tumblr}} were leeching images, and redirected it to an image of a girl lifting a table in rage with the tagline "STOP LEECHING YOU FUCKS".

This is why we have the [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/uploadform.php Image Uploader]].

* Jason Scott, the owner of the textfiles.com domain, hosted a "Grim Reaper Holding an Hourglass" image, [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/989 popularly hotlinked]] from Website/MySpace (usually as a background for people's blogs), but 400 hotlinks/hour was a bit too much, so he [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1011 replaced it with]] [[ShockSite Goatse]]. He later published [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1376 some metrics]] showing how the download statistics for the file have taken a sudden plunge.

* Joemonster.org, a Polish comedy website, did this once. Another humor website hotlinked to a funny video on Joemonster's server (and even copied Joemonster's description), so the site administrator [[http://joemonster.org/phorum/read.php?f=15&t=920005 replaced]] the original video--with a hard porn video.

* A 2004 LiveJournal AprilFoolsDay prank called "[[http://web.archive.org/web/20070921085433/http://moroveus.livejournal.com/138722.html Operation: Jour de Poisson]]" featured a user spreading an icon in apparent support of the phrase "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance... switching the image to one supporting the exact opposite stance on April 1.

* ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'': The "National Organization for Marriage", an anti-gay-marriage group, hot-linked a [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2144 comic from his site.]] The author responded by [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome changing the image]] to one [[http://twitpic.com/3w7b1j supporting gay marriage]].
* One guy hosted a "Grim Reaper Holding an Hourglass" image, [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/989 popularly hotlinked]] from Website/MySpace, but 400 hotlinks/hour was a bit too much, so he [[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1011 changed it]] to [[ShockSite Goatse.cx image]]. HilarityEnsues.[[note]]Links are broken; proper ones are "[[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1012 The Ass-Termath]]", "[[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1127 Goatse II: The Widening]]", "[[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1052 The February Goat Update]]" and "[[http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1376 Goatse Metrics]]" (graphs of goatse'ing).[[/note]]
* A 2004 LiveJournal AprilFoolsDay prank called "Operation: Jour de Poisson" featured a user spreading an icon in apparent support of the phrase "Under God" in the pledge of allegiance... switching the image to one supporting the exact opposite stance on April 1.
* The (hilarious) way Cockeyed.com dealt with a leecher is [[http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/imposter/imposter.html here.]]

* The evil forces of [[ImageBoards Enturbulation]] used this tactic against against the Guardian newspaper on one occasion. Specifically, when it leeched a picture taken at a protest against the [[ChurchOfHappyology Scilons]] from Britchan. They responded with [[ShockSite Goatse]]. The exact course of events is documented in the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIjNzXSQoGY

* When Website/{{Something Awful}}'s paywall went up during the finale of the VisualNovel/DanganRonpa LetsPlay, they discovered people on Website/{{Tumblr}} were leeching images, and redirected it to an image of a girl lifting a table in rage with the tagline "STOP LEECHING YOU FUCKS"
* Jameth, a user of Encyclopedia Dramatica, keeps an eye on his bandwidth and if enough people hotlink to an image, he'll replace it with a photo of four black men being lynched with the suitably offensive message "NO NIGGERS" printed on it, invoking the stereotype of black people stealing things. It's bad enough that it won't even be linked to here.
* Joemonster.org, a Polish comedy website, did this once. Another humor website hotlinked to a funny video on Joemonster's server (and even copied Joemonster's description), so the site administrator [[http://joemonster.org/phorum/read.php?f=15&t=920005 replaced]] the original video--with hard pornography.

* Wiki/{{Conservapedia}} hotlinked an image of the Grand Canyon citing "FairUse". The owner [[http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/File:Copyrighted-Picture.jpg responded]] by adding text to the picture denouncing Conservapedia's beliefs and their hijacking of the pic.

* The John [=McCain=] MySpace site featured an update template which didn't give the requested credit to its designer, and leeched images from his site. He responded by replacing it with [[http://mike.newsvine.com/_news/2007/03/27/633799-hacking-john-mccain a fake message from John supporting gay marriage]].

* When Website/{{Something Awful}}'s paywall went up during the finale of VisualNovel/DanganRonpa LP, they discovered people on Website/{{Tumblr}} were leeching images, and redirected it to an image of a girl lifting a table in rage with the tagline "STOP LEECHING YOU FUCKS"
* Jameth, a user of ''Encyclopedia Dramatica'', keeps an eye on his bandwidth and if enough people hotlink to an image, he'll replace it with a photo of four black men being lynched with this suitably offensive message: "NO NIGGERS" printed on it, invoking the /b/elief on 4chan about larceny and Americans with African heritage. It's bad enough that it won't even be linked to here.

* ''SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'': The "National Organization for Marriage", an anti-gay-marriage group, hot-linked a [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2144 comic from his site.]] The author responded by [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome changing the image]] to one [[http://twitpic.com/3w7b1j supporting gay marriage]].