.htaccess domain blocking error

I tried adding this at the top of my .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} badsite.com [OR,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} otherbadsite.com [OR,NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} thirdbadsite.com [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|swf|png)$ - [NC,F]

But then I receive this error when I try to visit my site:
Forbidden. You don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying
to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
-------
Apache/1.3.27"

What am I doing wrong?

John wrote:
 > I tried adding this at the top of my .htaccess file:
 >
 > RewriteEngine On
 > RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} badsite.com [OR,NC]
 > RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} otherbadsite.com [OR,NC]
 > RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} thirdbadsite.com [NC]
 > RewriteRule .*\.(gif|jpg|swf|png)$ - [NC,F]

I'm not sure what you are doing wrong, but the group FAQ suggests that
you use:

--- start ---
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.gif$ - [F]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.jpg$ - [F]
--- end ---

to stop image linking from any site other than your own. It appears to
be only a matter of adding in a couple more rules to cover swf and png
images.

Looking at your rules, do you really want to ban image linking from just
those three "bad sites" or would banning from *all* other sites be good
enough?

--
Dylan Parry
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://webpageworkshop.co.uk" target="_blank">http://webpageworkshop.co.uk</a> -- FREE Web tutorials and references<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->