One of the biggest problems with bandwidth theft is that a lot of people don't fully understand just what bandwidth is or the effects of bandwidth theft on the Internet. There are a lot of people explaining it in technical terms, but hopefully this page can explain it a way that may hit closer to home. The analogies I may use are not exact, but are intended to compare bandwidth and bandwidth theft to situations everyone can relate to.
Whenever a music or image file is linked to, the server that houses that file has to supply the bandwidth necessary to get that file to your email page or wherever else you link from. Keep in mind this means the length of time it takes you to write the letter as well as everytime that letter is read by the person you sent it to and by anyone they may have forwarded it to. In the case of newsgroups that allow active html in posts, that server is supplying their bandwith everytime someone reads a post.
That means they are free in the sense that there are no copyright restrictions on them. Some websites sell original graphics. When you link to these free midis and images without permission, you are forcing someone else to pay the cost of getting that file from it's home server to your page. If any of us ever discovered that one of the neighbors had run an extention cord into our house to power up his appliances we would most likely take the matter to the police, yet we expect servers to allow us to do the same thing.
The way most servers and site owners compensate for their "bandwidth bills" is by charging advertisers for placing ads on pages. The more traffic, or page hits, they have, the more they can charge an advertiser. That's why so many of them offer free personal homepages...more subscribers = more pages = more hits = more advertising revenue. The money made from advertising offsets the money spent for bandwidth. When someone is "remote linking" to a file the server still pays for the bandwidth, but doesn't get the page hits to justify their advertising fees. Advertising revenue decreases, but bandwidth usage keeps rising.
Remember, .com stands for commercial. These are not non-profit businesses. Many commercial sites have been forced to close because they could not afford to keep paying their increased bandwidth charges.
And that's commendable. Your website is now free from bandwidth theft. But when you link to that file for an email signature, Tripod is once again paying for the bandwidth without any page hits to show for it.
Tripod has solved their problem by refusing access to any jpeg, midi, or wav files from anywhere off the Tripod server. GeoCities has followed suit by refusing access to midi files from off their server. Presumably, most midis you now hear in email are coming from Angelfire. It probably won't be long before they stop playing too.
No. Some servers do allow it. In the case of your own homepage server, re-read your TOS (Terms of Service) to see if it is prohibited. When surfing through sites that offer free images choose those that SAY linking is allowed. Some companies like Pagetalk and Weather Underground want you to remote link to their do-dads and gizmos. Show off that html expertise with tables, colors, marquees and the like. Put your big extravaganza on a webpage and provide a link to it in your email. The more you use it, the faster it will be gone.