I think the term "hotlinking" in the title of this thread and in Rule 8 is incorrectly used.

In my Windows Word program, a "hotlink" is a url address, which I can click and that will take me to the internet and to a specific picture or web page.

The "theft of bandwidth" involves only posting a photo directly to a thread page, where we can see the photo while we see the thread page.

But "hotlinking", by use of a "hot" url address that we can click on and that takes us to someone else's website, does not involve "theft of bandwidth".