You are definatly not wrong in your view of this. It is the same as stealing! Corparit America say's that downloading music and movies is stealing. But this is okay? I don't think so, allthough I do feal that borrowing music is not a crime. It is as if someone else is taking credit for your work.

How did you find out they were linking to your files and where they were located?

Well, yes and no as I see it. If they were embedding the video from your server into one of their web pages, then yes, you have absolutely every right to ask them not to. That affects your site's bandwidth allowance, and therefore, the expense that comes with overages. (There are ways to prevent this on your end, including the use of .htaccess files.)

If, however, they were merely providing a link, then it becomes a bit less cut and dried. Simply including a text link to a file on your server will not use your bandwidth until someone clicks on it. I get the impression from your post that this is what happened, and perhaps this is why you got the response you did from the deep linker -- they probably didn't think what they did was wrong.

Either way, the bottom line is "your server -- your rules"; you may want to look into protecting the media folders on your server from deep linkers. (Again, a .htaccess file may help.)

It is rude and as everyone said, it does use up your bandwith. May not be a problem today but why wait till it is. A polite email is fine. You may consider posting a caption or link asking people to not deep link to your site.

The person was probably nasty because you busted them on it. They knew it was rude. If they do it again, just block their IP on your server.

I would have changed the file name and adjusted the links, and blocked the IP for a period. Hell with the niceties of an email.