[CharlesWayneCT]

... denial that hotlinking graphics from another's website is theft was the biggest eye opener, particularly in light of the holier-than-thou religious taunts in so many of posts.

(Removed name because it isn't important to my question)

Do people here think hotlinking is really an issue of law? I think I hot-link all the time, I just put an html piece in my comments referencing the location of a picture and sometimes it shows up, I use "img src=".

I'm not stealing anything, I'm linking a picture. If the owner of the picture doesn't want it to come to my site, they can make that happen. Any browser is allowed to go ask a site for a file, and if that site doesn't want to provide a file they can block it.

So, is it stealing to hotlink a picture, or not?

[conservative in nyc]

Do people here think hotlinking is really an issue of law? I think I hot-link all the time, I just put an html piece in my comments referencing the location of a picture and sometimes it shows up, I use "img src=".

Maybe.

There is a current case pending against Google Image's indexing and display of thumbnail photos from other websites. See:
Perfect 10 v. Google (Electronic Frontier Foundation)