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@gbj_tester
The method of blocking provides a good cost/benefit ratio, since it all but eliminates large scale hotlinking for very little cost in time to the host or his favoured guests. Of course it isn't 100% effective, since referrers can be spoofed, and it's not 100% proof against inconveniencing legitimate users since some people have their browser configured to not send referrer headers, possibly for sound reasons, but "ludicrous" is definitely hyperbole on your part.
Using your housebreaking analogy, unauthorised use of bandwidth is stealing, even when the owner is dumb enough to leave cash on the sill of an open window. I'd agree that hosting a file on a publicly available server is more like throwing cash out of a helicopter flying over a city, so basic hotlinking isn't unauthorised and therefore isn't theft. If somebody spoofs the referrer header in order to circumvent the limited protection offered by the technique, that would probably also amount to "unauthorised access to a computer", since the user would have deliberately used false credentials to access that which he could not otherwise have accessed.