The problem isn't that the link won't work, the problem is that directly linking to image files (.jpg, .gif, .png) on the DA server can get you and your IP permanently banned from DA. From what I have seen, browsing about !banned-accounts (a hobby mine) the DAdmins are rather strict about this, not particularly prone to giving second chances and ignorance is not an adequate defense.
Why DA will ban you for this:
0 • DA (and indeed, many others) calls this hotlinking, and it drains them of bandwidth--which costs money.
Also, DA is hosting your art. Perhaps reasonably, if you are pimping it, they want people to see the art hosted within the context of their website, the comments, the DA community, and all-importantly the DA ads and promos. It's how I signed up for the site (I wanted to leave comments D= )
Explanation of hotlinking and bandwidth:
1 • Y'see, whenever I pull up
this page we are reading right now, all the images we see are pulling on
bandwidth from some originating server. Some images are using bandwidth from the
ezboard.com server, like
the image for sticky topics; some of them are from the
zeke.tzo.com server, like the posticons (
). Likewise...
2 • If you link an image from
deviantart.com, it will use bandwidth from
their server.
3 • Bandwidth costs money. If hotlinking is not kept in check, this could cost them
lots and lots of money--especially when people start using DA to host avatars for popular forums.
<3<3<3
What you do......
DA wants you to link to the HTML page wherein your image is located. And thus, your posts are edited to keep you from getting banned before DA can take punitive action.
I'm not entirely sure what mechanisms are used to detect hotlinking--DM may know more about that than I do. <p>
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