All work and no play.... good thing I'm blonde haired and blue eyed.

Jesus, all this over some silly little rank images.

Nope, read the thread before you post.

I did read the thread, every single post. And I still think it's a bit OTT really, no offense intended.

You can't really have images installed on your site, that are not hotlink protected. And expect that people will not use them after finding them in google image search. I've seen this argument many times on other sites about images. The bottom line is this, if you don't want others using them. You should watermark them and enable hotlink protection right from the very word go.

If your just going to upload them without watermarks, and also not even enable hotlink protection so there not advertised in Google images for anybody to use and get. I really don't see your complaint to be honest, you've left yourself wide open. There could be a thousand other sites out there by now using your images that your totally un-aware off.

I once knew a guy who created fantastic banner logo's, he went on to create header logos for cash for businesses. The same happened to him. He uploaded demo's without watermarks. And everybody used them. He had the same argument as this thread. But everybody told him it was his own silly mistake for not watermarking them as demo's.

If I leave my garage door open, does that mean I should expect people to come in and take my things? Of course not. I have a reasonable expectation that people will respect my property even though I know that there are those out there who do not.

Just because people "can", doesn't mean that you should expect it or not be upset when someone does it. I might leave my front door unlocked, but that doesn't mean the first person I don't know who walks through isn't going to get beat or shot.

Sure, you can prevent hotlinking. You can watermark. You can do many things that in the end won't stop everyone from stealing your stuff and it doesn't mean that the people who do it are any less guilty because you didn't.

Kind of like saying that gal who got raped shouldn't have been out drinking - nothing justifies the actions of the rapist.

Not that you're all wrong, but it's obvious you haven't read the thread.

This is not from a google search. This is from allowing his review section to be shown as an example. And others just grabing what they need without asking. And on top of that, someone grabing them and selling them to others that are using this mod.

As far as google that can be fixed easing by turning off indexing for that directory and including it in robots.txt

And it makes no sense whatsoever to watermark images that are being used in an actual application. That would look kind of silly now wouldn't it.

That being said, the responce was a bit over the top and looks like it was embarasing for individuals that where duped into thinking they were making a legit purchase. Next time, be patient, diplomatic and determined to find the real culprit at the expence of only that person.

I agree, going around to different sites and accusing the owners of stealing images from his site is, among other things, not very smart, expecially when the threatens them with a law suit.

I have been thinking about this since this surfaced and here is what I have come up with.

1: The OP acusses site owners of theft and threatens legal action.
2: The site owner has purchased these items and then sues the OP for libel.
3: Whether or not these items were purchased from the OP or not, his statements of the theft are false and the OP is legally liable for damages.
4: The OP is correct (in some cases) and the owners refuse to stop using the images. The OP then spends who knows how much in lawyer fees to get said images removed from unauthorized sites.
5: After who knows how much money and time the site owner removes said images IF it is proven they are in fact the property of the OP and that the site owner has infact "stolen" them.

Or

The OP politely asks for his images to be removed and the site owner agrees.

I guess my point is this, jumping all over someone on their site and accusing them of theft probably is not the best way to get things done. Especially when 1: You then want them to help you find who was distributiing said images & 2: You dont offer any proof that you are the creator of said images. Simply having them on your site does not prove you created them, in the legal sense.

Except for that hotlinking issue, of course....

As stated in the begining of this thread. That was not viewed by anyone other than the author of this thread. The links provided had no visible hot links.

If hotlinking was the issue there would be no reason for this thread or any of the other things the OP did in his "quest" as he could have fixed that issue in about 2 minutes.

Hotlinking is an ethical issue not a legal one if I am not mistaken.