Pinterest… have you heard of it? It is this great new visual tool….I kid, I kid. Everyone has heard of Pinterest, the newest thing since sliced bread Twitter, and it has taken social media by storm. Of course after its initial surge to popularity and mass following by just about everyone, some of its problems and shortcomings are being brought to the surface. The most concerning are the recent articles swirling around that insinuate that if you use Pinterest, you could be sued for your pins.
The truth of the matter is, yes, if you pin an image and don’t have permission from the original creator (photographer, painter, etc.) you could, in theory, be sued for a copyright violation. If a lawsuit were to start, I imagine it would be much like the Napster lawsuits and it would be focused on the “high use” offenders, people who pin thousands of images without permission and attribution. Copyright laws also allow work to be used without permission when someone is criticizing it, commenting on it, reporting on it, teaching about it, or conducting research. Some legal experts have theorized that by commenting on pins that you pin (say that five times fast!) you might be using the images fairly without permission, but that is an untested legal theory so don’t take my word for it.
While some people have chosen to delete their Pinterest account in the wake of this information, if you find yourself pin-obsessed, here are some ways to be a good user and avoid difficulty with copyrights, and other pinners.
Ask Permission & Always Attribute
The best way to avoid any issues with content that you pin is to ask the original creator for permission to pin the item or photo. If you don’t (or can’t) ask for permission, at the very least be sure to properly pin the image so it attributes back to its original source, so other Pinterest users can get straight to the original beginning. If a blogger has a “Pin It” button on their post and you want to pin their recipe or post, use their button for easy original source attribution. (Keep in mind: attribution does not erase copyright requirements or fix copyright violations but it is the polite way to go about your pinning)
And about attribution….Don’t pin search engine results, as they are not properly attributed. If you find an image that you want to pin but you can’t figure out where it came from, check out TinEye, the reverse image search that should find the original source for you in no time flat. Be sure to pin from the source page of an image, not from the image URL, so that other Pinterest users can click through to the original article or image. Finally, don’t pin from the 50th Tumblr repost of something- use TinEye and get straight to the source so other users don’t fall down a rabbit hole trying to find that great pair of sunglasses or shade of eyeshadow.
Don’t Jump to Conclusions
Pinterest does not have a great follow-back feature so don’t get your feelings hurt if your blog idol (or good friend) isn’t following you back on Pinterest. Without a great way to sort followers and friends, it is most likely an oversight on their part and not a personal slight.
Don’t Go Overboard
When you are on a roll it is really easy to pin 100 photos of purple wedding centerpieces or first birthday party ideas or great leather boots, but keep in mind that your pins are showing up in your friend’s streams- consider breaking it up into smaller chunks so you are not overwhelming others with an entire feed of DIY tulle skirt tutorials.
Don’t Stalk
Pinterest doesn’t have a “block” feature and keep in mind that without that face to face contact, what you see as enthusiasm might be interpreted differently by another user. Don’t repin or comment on every single pin by someone else, no matter how much you admire them.
Don’t Use Copy & Paste
It might seem really handy to take a recipe or tutorial post and copy all the directions into the “comment” section of your pin, but that is a copyright violation and should not be done. Pins like this that are reported to Pinterest for copyright violations are removed, so save yourself the hassle and use the comment section to give the recipe a great description so you can remember what it was that struck your interest in the first place, and will let other users find it with ease!
When in Doubt: Refer to Pinterest
Pinterest does have some good resource pages – if you have questions about their copyright policy (or want to report a copyright violation of your own) you can check that out here. Are you looking for HTML coding so you can add a Pinterest button or pin to your blog or post? You can find that on their “Goodies” page. They also have a nice summary of being a polite user which you can always refer to.
Are you following Curvy Girl Guide on Pinterest? We’d love for you to pin your favorite Curvy Girl Guide articles, recipes, and style suggestions!
Happy Pinning!
Daisy is a lawyer married to a lawyer (insert lawyer jokes here) living in a small condo in a big city with a new baby and beagle. She breaks up the legal-speak by blogging about life in Chicago, which is filled with escapades of urban living. In the summer she enjoys patio dining and in the winter wonders what she was thinking when she moved here. You can read more from Daisy on her blog, Just Daisy.
So, um, I’m not on Pinterest. I know I would spend too much time on it, so I refuse.
Do it.
You might be the devil.
You know you want a Pinterest account. Stop pretending.
I’m not, either. I’m holding out. Stay strong, Sister!!!
I am so fascinated by this whole debate, and their seems to be strong rhetoric on each side of the coin, I’m pretty neutral, and being a site owner, often see first hand the monetary and traffic volume effects of Pinterest.
I have to wonder, unlike Napster, where files were downloaded and kept directly onto your computer, Pinterest operates in a way that none of those images are actually stored on your computer/server…so it’s Pinterest itself that holds the image. Wouldn’t that in itself exempt a pinner from being liable to copyright law, I mean, aside from the obvious fair use comment argument that you could make. It’s almost more a form of public bookmarking?
I don’t think so…I see what you are saying, but in this case it isn’t about saving the image, it is about sharing it and sending it out into the web w/out permission from the owner, who in theory could have only wanted the image to reside on THEIR website or blog and nowhere else. Now, obviously bloggers who have “Pin It” buttons probably don’t mind, and there is now HTML coding that web owners can install on their sites to prevent Pinterest from picking up an image, which would in theory deter pins from their content. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
So I shouldn’t pin this article since you don’t have a ‘pin it’ button?
Good catch- we are actually getting it up and running as I type this (HTML coding, ugh) but that is a good rule of thumb to follow if you are concerned about copyright issues, as arguably if a blogger has installed a “Pin It” button on a post, they are giving you permission to pin away.
PLEASE, people! I am begging you to pin from the website when you find something rad and not a search engine like Daisy says.
Nothing sucks more than finding a deliciously cheesy recipe picture on Pinterest or a sweet pair of heels and then not being able to clickthrough to find out how to make or purchase it.
This is why I tend to click through on a recipe I want to pin first to see if it actually leads to a recipe and not just a random image.
On the flip side of “WHY ARE YOU PINNING MY STUFF…NOOOOOOO”, I had a gentlemen thank me the other day for pinning a few of his things and go on to say I could feel free to pin his entire site if I wanted.
I like that guy.
Suing someone over pinning or sharing your site or blog post makes no sense to me. If you don’t want people sharing your blog posts, then don’t post anything on the internets! We’re just sharing, we aren’t making a profit from it.
Also, Pinterest, when pinned properly, leads me to sites and recipes and ideas I never would have otherwise found. So I can’t imagine a blogger or site owner NOT wanting more traffic.
But I’m just a Pinterest Addict from Indiana. What do I know.
I don’t think the issue is with bloggers/blog post pins as much as it is with individuals who pin copyrighted material from “professional” sources such as a magazine or photographer’s website without asking permission and often without attribution. In that instance I think that individuals and corporations are well within their rights to demand the pins be taken down due to copyright issues.
as a side note, if it’s illegal to pin, is it then illegal to bookmark too?
No, a bookmark is just that, marking something to go back to it, at its original source and is not being shared or disseminated. The issue here is the “reuse” or sharing of a copyrighted image or material. For instance someone pins an image of a travel destination they found on a photographer’s website, but the image is on the website for the photographer to try and sell copies of – that would be something the photographer could have removed from Pinterest for a copyright violation.
Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org) has created a number of licenses that attempt to solve this very problem, so that people can let other web users know how they can use the copyrighted material, which makes it much easier than seeking permission directly from the copyright owner. Flickr and Google (I believe) both have filters to search for images by CC license, which really is how people concerned with infringement should locate images. I’m surprised Pinterest hasn’t attempted to adopt some of these CC licenses.
Pinterst does have some HTML coding that site owners can install to prevent people from being able to create pins from their images, which seems like a step in the right direction I think.
I loved this, because there are quite a few things I didn’t think of. I go on Pinterest binges (where I’ll pin, like, 100 things in the span of two hours), but I don’t spend a ton of time on the home page, so I didn’t realize the whole, “Clogging your friends’ Pinterest feed” issue. Hmph. That makes me feel like I’m the annoying girl on Facebook who updates her status every 20 minutes.
However, I’ll only go on a Pinterest binge about twice per week, so…that’s how I justify it. Heh.
Another thing I didn’t realize was that if you pin something, the exact URL you pinned from does NOT get copied automatically, so if someone clicks the pin, they don’t automatically get taken to exactly where you found it. So that’s a little frustrating, but lately I’ve been trying to save the exact URL along with each pin.
Another, another thing is that you cannot pin directly from StumbleUpon (where I find tons of my pins), but you can take the Stumble part of the URL off of it, copy and paste the original URL, and pin from there. That was good for me to learn.
The whole not being able to block someone part of it is annoying. I have exactly one harasser/troll right now who I wish I could block, but can’t. Sigh. I say we petition for the “block” feature.
As far as the part where people repin the crap out of your stuff…I LOVE it! I’m stuck on myself, and when people repin, like, every single pin I put up, it makes me feel like I’m the cool girl (and my stuff actually gets repinned a surprising amount…it rocks.)
In the end, I adore the hell outta Pinterest, and it’s finally helping me realize that I actually DO have a sense of style, after thinking, for all these years, that I was just completely fashion-inept.
I don’t agree with the tip about not going overboard. Isn’t the whole point to have people see what you’re repinning? If I’m pinning too much for a follower to handle (which so isn’t the case for me, I don’t really get the allure of Pinterest), they can unfollow. I’m not pinning to make others happy.
– Selfish Katey
I totally agree that you should pin for yourself, but like with any social media site, I think awareness of how your actions (or posts or pins or Tweets) impact those who you are connected with is important. Obviously everyone goes on sprees with some topic or another, but there are people who are CONSTANTLy filling my Pinterest feed with 75+ photos a single celebrity or a single dress style, and it is overwhelming. I end up unfollowing them which is too bad, as they might have some great things to offer, but I can’t get past the overload.
Comments on this entry are closed.