From Google:
Hotlinking is when you directly use (e.g. embed/display/link) a file (such as an image, movie, audio file, flash animation, or any other digital asset) that is hosted on another site.
It is considered poor netiquette to hotlink for the following reasons:
1) You are consuming another site's resources for your own benefit.
2) Aside from costing the owner in bandwidth, by hotlinking their files you may be undermining their revenue source. Many websites may depend on revenue from advertisements, and the said advertisements are usually not placed in the files themselves, but in the html page where the files are linked to or displayed (e.g. a software developer may depend on revenue from ads on their download page, but not on ads in the actual software). By bypassing the html page, you could also bypass advertisements, and thus, deprive them of revenue.
3) It is considered especially rude to hotlink images or other embedded assets without crediting the author (which many people do). Not only are you plagiarizing their content, you are also doing so in a way that (may) use their resources and deprive them of revenue.
Additionally, hotlinking means you depend on the other webmaster not moving/removing or altering the hotlinked asset, all of which can have negative effects on your site or pose security risks.
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