Hotlinking and Intellectual Property Rights

I ran into an informed blog post on this topic: Bloggers Hotlink Images, and Cost Webmasters Money by Rose DesRochers.

Good reading, and makes a good point. I had forgotten how much bandwidth could be eaten up by enthusiastic hotlinkers.

A concern I have about the practice is the lack of reciprocity: unless the hotlinker gives credit for an image's source, the image's poster gets no benefit from use of the image.