Linking to Images or other files on Another Server
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Directly linking to images (or other files) on another server for use on your website is known as bandwidth theft, and it's a violation of the Terms of Service of many ISPs. It's also extremely bad netiquette.
What happens when you link to images (or other files like sound files or similar) on someone else's server is that every time someone loads your page, it draws the image or file from their site. Since many people pay for their bandwidth usage, every time someone loads your page it costs the person you're stealing from money. On some large sites with many graphics, this can add up to literally hundreds or even thousands of dollars in extra fees per month, and many a free graphics site has been shut down due to so many people linking and stealing bandwidth in this way.
And not only is this bad for the person you're stealing from, it can be bad for you, too, in lots of ways.
Since you are loading images to your page over a network, your page's load time will almost certainly be much slower. If there's a network problem between you and the other server (which is common on the internet), your page may take a very, very long time to load and eventually show a broken image when it can't connect.
When you link to images that belong to someone else, you give them the power to put any image they want on your page. It is not uncommon when someone discovers a bandwidth thief to replace the stolen images with something rude. You could end up with images that publicly call you a thief. You could end up with much worse, such as obscene images. When you link to images on someone else's server, you're practically begging them to supply you with something else and make you look like a fool.
Of course, not all webmasters are inclined to put something rude on your page, and will simply move or rename the images, so your site is just a bunch of broken images. (It has happened, too, that a site owner does this and the bandwidth thief emails the site owner and complains that they messed up the thief's site! Can you believe the nerve and stupidity of some people?)
Do not ever, ever link to an image on someone else's website unless it expressly and directly allowed and there's a good reason to do so (such as a merchant "reward" plan or the like). Stealing bandwidth will slow your site down considerably, you risk having broken images if the network is down or their server is down, and you may end up with quite other than you bargained for!
WebTV users should visit this page about using WebTV and how to use transloaders so as to avoid stealing bandwidth. Yes, it's wrong no matter who does it. You can use a transloader service to get the files you want to your website hosting provider.
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