For smaller sites it is not unusual for a hot linked image to use more bandwidth than the rest of an entire site many times over. This isn't an issue for me an

For smaller sites it is not unusual for a hot linked image to use more bandwidth than the rest of an entire site many times over. This isn't an issue for me any more, but I had some ideas over the years - 1) Make hotlink images serve pictures with a massive watermark. This way you get free branding/advertising. 2) Serve specific images to specific problem hot linkers, for example "Pinterest sucks (insert favorite word)." 2) If you are more malicious, make the behavior random so it isn't immediately evident to the site owner/moderator what is going on. Image attribution gets little respect, just take a look at what happened to Google Images. The service went from being obvious (to the mass market user) where the image was coming from (assuming it was being published by the original owner) to now it just looks like Google has their own stock photography service. Irregardless of your opinion on copyright, everyone agrees on attribution when it comes to code. As far as I believe the same is true for images. Hotlinking is the tip of a very problematic iceberg.