I have a site that has a popular image in Google images listed on the first page and when they link it properly, it can bring in 100 - 200 more visitors a day. The thing is, it will show the thumbnail from my site, and then usually show a site that is hotlinking the picture and they will get the hit for the photo. I live in Taiwan, and the photo is of a store called "Nigger King" which has since been renamed "Niggar King". Yeah, it sells hip hop stuff. My partner took the photo, so it is not like we have done any stealing ourselves. I am not proud that searching for the word "nigger" in Google images will yield hits to my site, but I hate it when other sites are stealing form me, and then Google rewards them with hits for doing it. I just get more bandwidth sucked that way... I have emailed them multiple times over the issue, it gets resolved, then it will change to another site that has hotlinked the photo. What can I do to make sure it doesn't happen again? I can't possibly fight Google, but I just hope they can manage their system a little better than they have been.
You could also look and see whether their website has a decent bit of returning or natural traffic. If it does, then you switch your image with a nasty/gross/disgusting/or whatever you can think of image to freak out his users. I'm pretty sure there is an option for you to switch it off too, if you want to take the boring route .
I can disable it in .htaccess it is true. I did for a while, but I actually disabled all of the photos. It is that Google is aiding it through their images feature. They have a thumbnail of the photo I think, then they show the frame of the other site with my photo in it, thereby helping a site leach my bandwidth.