"Peter J. Holzer" wrote:

> >> You're right.  But what about just linking to the files on their
> >> site?
> >> (It's also easier for me to do)
> >
> >This raises another issue with violating the TOS of several service
> >providers such as the major ones like geocities, xoom, and my own ISP
> >who forbid linking to files directly from other web pages. It may
> >not be a problem for you but you may jeopardize other people's
> >accounts.
> 
> This seems to be a rather unfair policy. If I put a link from my site to
> one of your pages you may not even find out (do you get the referrer
> logs from your provider?) and in any case you cannot do anything against
> it. Apart from that it is of course totally against the spirit of the
> WWW to forbid links.

I provide links to well over a 1000 web pages. I do not however provide
links to the downloadable material on those sites. There is a distinct
difference. When I link to a page and someone activates it they are
taken to that page and may do what they want once there. If I were to
link to a utility then when the link us activated a download process
ensues -without- taking the visitor to the referring page.

For example:

This link will take you to a web with pov resources available -
http://www.xoom.com/povpage/index.html

This link will automatically download povfile.zip without you
visiting the page -
http://www.xoom.com/povpage/utilities/povfile.zip

The reason that web page providers do not like this, especially providers
like Geocities and Xoom, is because it bypasses their advertising which
is what makes it possible for them to provide free web based services
for their clients. If you bypass the web page you in essence turn them
into a free file storage service for yourself without the need of entering
into a contract with them. They lose potential profits this way. Regardless
it is their policy to restrict this kind of activity and while it might
not hurt you it may cause the persons page you are linking to to be
yanked for TOS violations - something I am sure you don't want to do.

I am not sure I described the difference well and maybe someone can
make it a little more clear why companies like xoom would restrict
this type of linking.

-- 
Ken Tyler -  1300+ Povray, Graphics, 3D Rendering, and Raytracing Links:
http://home.pacbell.net/tylereng/index.html http://www.povray.org/links/

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