[vgeek]

As little as 10 years ago, the most common solution to hotlinking was swapping out the hotlinked images with something different/offensive to shoo away the hotlinker. Or various anti-hotlinking scripts. Or maybe even check request headers against your own domain at the server level. Now the solution is a 7 figure cry of foul enforced by the FBI? Was the offense more egregious and involved hotlinking of novel IP, leading to more aggressive enforcement?

[titusjohnson]

If you don't have money you spend a few evenings setting up referrer protection of some fashion and serve goatse to unauthorized clients. Problem self-solves over time. I was on the receiving end of this a few times, back when I was young and had no way of paying for my own legit image hosting.

If you have money you may also have scale and a public image, so this solution is not so palatable. And since you have money and lawsuits are socially acceptable, you go that route.

If sending security to your house with baseball bats were socially acceptable that would be the route utilized.