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Pinterest, We Have a Problem

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Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#101

Post by seldo »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #98

What we have here is manufactured outrage. Total non-story. I hope others don't start piling on now that this has been written. The real deal is that Pinterest is screwed either way. These terms sound scary but so long as they are enforced sanely there should be no problem. What do you expect them to do? Assume liability for users posting content they should not be posting? They might as well not exist. A lot of star…

I agree completely, but there's a double-standard here. What if instead of (mostly) photographs pinterest was mostly video? Then it would be YouTube, and everyone is pretty clear that you shouldn't upload a video to YouTube if you don't own it. Of course, some people flout that rule, but I figure the majority of content on YouTube is genuinely owned by the people who post it, while I very much doubt this is the case on Pinterest.

So which is it? Is it bad that Pinterest is mostly "stolen" content, or bad that we're not allowed to post similarly "stolen" content on YouTube? The former implies that Pinterest should start cracking down on people who post content they don't own; the latter implies that YouTube should stop doing so (and therefore, copyright law should change).

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#102

Post by billpatrianakos »

yuvadam wrote: post #3

Oh please, not again. Absolutely any and every product you use has ridiculous Terms of Service. These documents are drafted up by lawyers. Their job is not to please the end users who care to read through the legalese. Their job is to create a document that will protect the product vendor in court, if and when the time comes. Lets put an end to finding eccentricities in ToSs/EULAs, it's getting kind of redundant. If…

Thank you! So true. Slow news day? Read some TOSes and manufacture some fake outrage. It's so old now.

Concerned about copyright? First off, I'm surprised anyone here would be concerned about copyright seeing as how everyone loves to talk about music/software pirates like they're modern day revolutionary heroes. Secondly, file a damn DMCA takedown request. We're not talking about the Pirate Bay here. It's Pinterest, they'll probably comply pretty quickly. Don't have time to patrol Pinterest for violations? Well, I feel for you but realistically it's a simple site where people share cool stuff. More than any other type of sharing website Pinterest users have the most benign intentions and it's really unlikely either Pinterest itself or it's users intend to profit from or intentionally violate copyright.

I live near Chicago where earthquakes are unheard of but there is a fault line running through Illinois and we do get the odd tremor every so often. There could be a disastrous earthquake here tonight (scientists do say that one day there will be a big one here) but I'm not cowering in my home or running through the streets trying to warn people of it. It's the same with this Pinterest and copyright thing. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it's likely. Your time is better spent worrying about running your business and making it better rather than chasing around random Pinterest's users who could be... wait for it..l violating your copyright!!

Not to say copyright is a joke, I'm actually a rare supporter of it (to a degree) around here but seriously, it's friggin Pinterest, you're not losing a significant amount of money there.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#104

Post by billpatrianakos »

seldo wrote: post #101
billpatrianakos wrote: post #98

What we have here is manufactured outrage. Total non-story. I hope others don't start piling on now that this has been written. The real deal is that Pinterest is screwed either way. These terms sound scary but so long as they are enforced sanely there should be no problem. What do you expect them to do? Assume liability for users posting content they should not be posting? They might as well not exist. A lot of star…

I agree completely, but there's a double-standard here. What if instead of (mostly) photographs pinterest was mostly video? Then it would be YouTube, and everyone is pretty clear that you shouldn't upload a video to YouTube if you don't own it. Of course, some people flout that rule, but I figure the majority of content on YouTube is genuinely owned by the people who post it, while I very much doubt this is the case…

First off, YouTube's policy is very similar to Pinterest. Besides that, they have different use cases. People aren't posting photos to Pinterest because they want to look at photos or use it as an art gallery. The purpose of Pinterest is very different from that of YouTube. It's like an inspiration folder or a brain dump where you stash things you want or that inspire you so you can look at them in the future. YouTube truly is an exhibition in the fullest sense of the word. You are going there for the value of the videos themselves, not the value assigned to them by others. It's one thing for NBC to take down all videos on YouTube of SNL because the value to NBC is in the actual watching of the videos. With photos it's a little different. Users aren't exactly "using" photos. They're simply putting them in a virtual box to look at later. If you want to go out to buy a photograph you're going to buy it to use somewhere like on a postcard or a website. Of course you need to see the photo before you buy it and once it's seen it cannot be unseen. Pinterest is putting them in a different context but they aren't exactly using them per se.

Probably not the best argument but the more important point I want to make is that this is a case where you can't use semantics to argue your way through. There are a lot of variables involved that make this a very muddy issue. Things like intent and the probability that the photos will be used for profit need to be taken into account. Just because something can happen doesn't means the odds are high that it will.

Plus copyright holders still have the DMCA and it's unlikely Pinterest won't abide.

EDIT: I just realized that the way you framed the issue puts the onus on Pinterest to police the content. It's not a bad idea that they do but with video it's far easier to spot a famous movie or tv show than it is some freelance photographer's copyrighted work. The whole point of Pinterest's policy is to put the onus on the user to make sure they don't upload things they shouldn't. That's smart and combined with copyright holders' way to complain through DMCA, I see nothing wrong here.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#105

Post by lubujackson »

OneBytePerGreen wrote: post #18

Pinterest has a market valuation of > 200 million dollars... 30%+ of its images are flickr images... ... 99%+ of which are "All Rights Reserved". How many ... page views, ... new subscribers, ... and $$$ have the most-pinned flickr images generated for pinterest, with the author not seeing a single cent... not even having the satisfaction of seeing their popularity on pinterest reflect in their flickr stats? And: Pin…

"Pinterest's business model is flawed; it is based on systematic violation of copyright."

I don't think you've taken a look around the internet. Many successes are dependent on breaking or at least challenging the outdated concept of copyright, and many further successes were simply the latest new thing that incrementally improved the copyright situation (basically every music startup from Napster to Spotify). Even search engines (or ESPECIALLY search engines) are in a deeply gray area of copyright law and have never fully challenged the fuzziness of copyright law.

And maybe it's worth considering how much value is gained by everyone if there are weaker copyright restrictions and punishments.

In Pinterest's case, they could always make their system load the images directly from the source website. I'm sure they considered that and rejected it because it would make everything much slower and cause issues when sites go down or switch images, but that's precisely what Google Images does when you click on a thumbnail. What's the real difference here?

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#106

Post by billpatrianakos »

lwat wrote: post #100
billpatrianakos wrote: post #98

What we have here is manufactured outrage. Total non-story. I hope others don't start piling on now that this has been written. The real deal is that Pinterest is screwed either way. These terms sound scary but so long as they are enforced sanely there should be no problem. What do you expect them to do? Assume liability for users posting content they should not be posting? They might as well not exist. A lot of star…

So your argument is that everyone has bad TOSes and therefore we should just ignore it?

It's one thing to find something truly damning in a TOS and something else entirely to nitpick standard boilerplate legalese meant to protect companies from the very same people who nitpick the TOS in the first place.

I know it's cool to be contrarian around here but give me a break. Look at this like a human, not a robot, and you'll see this is a mountain made out of a mole hill. Not saying you in particular are looking at this like a robot, I was speaking in general there.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#107

Post by lwat »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #106
lwat wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your argument is that everyone has bad TOSes and therefore we should just ignore it?

It's one thing to find something truly damning in a TOS and something else entirely to nitpick standard boilerplate legalese meant to protect companies from the very same people who nitpick the TOS in the first place. I know it's cool to be contrarian around here but give me a break. Look at this like a human, not a robot, and you'll see this is a mountain made out of a mole hill. Not saying you in particular are loo…

If we never complain about these things they'll never get fixed.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#108

Post by andylei »

js2 wrote: post #27
OneBytePerGreen wrote: post #18

Pinterest has a market valuation of > 200 million dollars... 30%+ of its images are flickr images... ... 99%+ of which are "All Rights Reserved". How many ... page views, ... new subscribers, ... and $$$ have the most-pinned flickr images generated for pinterest, with the author not seeing a single cent... not even having the satisfaction of seeing their popularity on pinterest reflect in their flickr stats? And: Pin…

Recently, I wanted to make some picture postcards of various locations around the US for personal use, so I went looking for images. I found many on Flickr. I wanted to compensate the original photographer. There is no easy way to do this. At best, some photographs have a "request to license" link that bounces you to a third party (typically Getty Images) which offers to "Review the photo to determine if it's a good…

> There should be an easier way to remunerate the photographer, and at more reasonable prices

does anybody know of a site that allows this?

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#109

Post by js2 »

Terretta wrote: post #92
js2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, I wanted to make some picture postcards of various locations around the US for personal use, so I went looking for images. I found many on Flickr. I wanted to compensate the original photographer. There is no easy way to do this. At best, some photographs have a "request to license" link that bounces you to a third party (typically Getty Images) which offers to "Review the photo to determine if it's a good…

"This may make sense for images which are to be used in a commercial context, but for personal use like how I wanted to use the images, it's way too expensive and much too much friction." That's why Flickr lets you search for Creative Commons images, for which the photographer gives you that personal use permission in advance.

There are shades of a grey between commercial use and free use which are unaddressed.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#110

Post by jaylevitt »

aiscott wrote: post #55

I'm an amateur photographer, and I wasn't too concerned about this until I read that by Pinning something, their TOS says I am granting them rights to sell my work. I don't like that very much. By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sub…

IANAL, but as I recall you are practically required to have such a licensing clause, lest someone:

1. Pin their own copyrighted work 2. Wait for someone else to view it on Pinterest 3. Sue Pinterest for distributing or performing it.

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