hotlinked on ebay

Dear Internets,

How do you effectively deal with hotlinking?  A helpful person let me know that images from a previous post involving the use of an 8mm Peleng fisheye on the Panasonic GF1 were being used by seller “opticparadise” to sell that same lens on eBay:

gf1_hotlinked

The images on the listing link directly to the images on my site.

I don’t mind sharing and use of my images as long as I’m credited – that’s why I’ve placed all of my images under a creative commons license.

The images aren’t taking up a huge amount of bandwidth and I don’t really care to send a cease and desist (or delist?) type letter, but I figure I’ll contact the seller and let them know they should be crediting me for the images.

I’ve been trying to think of other options though and am curious about what can be done.  The first google hit for “how to deal with hotlinking” wasn’t very helpful.

  • I suppose you can watermark  – but I think that distracts from the photos.
  • I could just suck it up and accept it – if it’s easy to copy and “steal” then people will
  • I could implement a redirect, but this would mess up legitimate sharing (with attribution) and I don’t really like it when other people do that.

Thoughts?