WARNING - Using IMGUR is a risk!
Samon is suggesting it here, and I have been seeing a lot of people stating that they use it and will be using it across other forums I am a member of. One person though pointed out Imgur's Terms and Conditions page:
http://imgur.com/tos
Specifically:
Hotlinking is exactly what we do when we post those tags to get a picture to load from a web host onto this forum, without this forum having to host it.
[COLOR=#0000ff]http://altlab.com/hotlinking.html[/COLOR]
So, although it certainly works for the moment, there is going to be a huge number of Photobucket users who are likely to start doing it, spiking their bandwidth, and cause a crack down on offenders.
Samon is suggesting it here, and I have been seeing a lot of people stating that they use it and will be using it across other forums I am a member of. One person though pointed out Imgur's Terms and Conditions page:
http://imgur.com/tos
Specifically:
Stuff not to do
If someone else might own the copyright to it, don't upload it. Don't upload gore, "hate speech" (i.e. demeaning race, gender, age, religious or sexual orientation, etc.), or material that is threatening, harassing, defamatory, or that encourages violence or crime. Don't upload illegal content such as child porn or nonconsensual ("revenge") porn. Don't hotlink to adult content or to file-sharing, gambling, torrent, warez, or Imgur rip-off sites. Don't impersonate someone else. Also, don't use Imgur to host image libraries you link to from elsewhere, content for your website, advertising, avatars, or anything else that turns us into your content delivery network. If you do – and we will be the judge – or if you do anything illegal, in addition to any other legal rights we may have, we will ban you along with the site you're hotlinking from, delete all your images, report you to the authorities if necessary, and prevent you from viewing any images hosted on Imgur.com. We mean it.
Hotlinking is exactly what we do when we post those tags to get a picture to load from a web host onto this forum, without this forum having to host it.
[COLOR=#0000ff]http://altlab.com/hotlinking.html[/COLOR]
So, although it certainly works for the moment, there is going to be a huge number of Photobucket users who are likely to start doing it, spiking their bandwidth, and cause a crack down on offenders.