[Minor49er]

The article proposes one solution as being to essentially serve up different content to whoever is hotlinking the script, but then says "Obviously, I don't wanna do this." It seems like the clearest solution to me, so I don't know why it's a bad option.

The replacement solution worked for 3D Realms many years ago after a bunch of journalists, fansites, and forums would link to their game screenshots. When someone did, their image would be replaced with Duke Nukem dressed up as Uncle Sam, pointing at the screen, and captioned with something like "Duke wants you to host your own images"

[czx4f4bd]

I guess I'm one of those anti-social people, because my first thought was that anyone hotlinking a script from your server without permission is basically inviting you to deface -- uh, I mean, "creatively redesign" their website for them for free.

[than3]

Except they'd claim you maliciously did it and caused economic damages by breaking their system and then bring the lawyers in.

Pretty much the same narrative as what that Liberty Liberty Liberty guy did when he upped the semver noting a breaking change and pushed it.

[Cpoll]

If so, better do it now, otherwise your next of kin will have to deal with it when you die and the website gets shut off.