Guess that makes me some sort of a leech.

Personally I redirect (gif|png|jpg|css|txt|mp3|aac|swf|mov|mpg|mpeg) to a page, which uses some simple SSI to show the contents “inside” the page.

This way people can view it all locally, and they can link to it, but they can’t include anything directly on their pages (not without knowing enough to not even try to do it).

With proper tools you can doubtless craft a smaller GIF, so don’t mind me.

In the past, I’ve tailored the referral image to suit the crime. Freepers get a special image with included text about stealing private property. Homophobes get explicit gay porn - ESPECIALLY if they’re posting on a family-friendly site. Reactionaries have gotten Hitler, Michael Moore, one of the fine family of goatse-related graphics, or My Pretty Pony, depending on my mood.

If I could figure out a way to include a “lessthan”/DIV”greaterthan” code in a graphics file so that the host would get seriously annoyed at the offender for screwing up the rendering of every page the offender posted on, I’d be thrilled. But that big gif will have to do for now.

This person probably has no idea that the image they’re using isn’t somehow automagically placed on their C: drive (statistics, not a desire to slander, dictate they’re a Windows user) when they cut and paste the image’s address, and that the Internet obtains it from there. After all, it’s clear he thinks someone has hacked HIS image.

If you tell them that they’re grabbing the image off your server, they’ll either: (a) not believe you, (b) comprehend and be embarrassed, (c) fail to comprehend and (i) be even more embarrassed because they’ll think they’ve accidentally “hacked” you, or (ii) imagine they’ve become 1337.

I’d just rewrite to a 1×1 transparent GIF and watch the fun as he tries to figure out why his avatar isn’t working. Easier than trying to explain, but not too unkind.

The best one yet was when a Xanga user used a big White Stripes wallpaper image of mine as his Xanga journal’s background image. I replaced it with a big swastika that matched his color scheme, so it looked completely intentional. The old image was in his browser cache. Within a few days I went back to find a dozen comments from his friends asking him WTF he was thinking, and a dozen replies from him going “ha ha, funny, stop pulling my leg”. A few days after that he clued in.

An entry in robots.txt to banish Google Imagebot is probably all that’s required. I chose to move all my photos to flickr instead though, so now it’s their problem.