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Pinterest, We Have a Problem

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Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#111

Post by billpatrianakos »

lwat wrote: post #107
billpatrianakos wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do they get fixed though? If we don't pick our battles we run the risk of being seen as a bunch of whiners and being written off as such. Do these things need fixing? Is it the TOS that need fixing or is it the conditions under which such agreements are made necessary that need fixing. Maybe we're focusing our efforts in the wrong place.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#112

Post by chives »

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.

Never mind various sites which also offer public domain images as well. Then there is the 3rd choice of actually talking to the photographer. I have used original songs produced from a musician (with his written consent) and photos produced by a photographer (again with written consent) on websites I have made. Then again one is a good friend and the other is the future wife of another good friend of mine.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#113

Post by cbr »

js2 wrote: post #91
briandon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Getty Images process doesn't sound too terrible to me. Is the up-to-a-week wait partly a consequence of GI giving the photog a chance to approve/deny the request? That would be reasonable -- they might not want, for example, a Neo-Nazi group licensing their photo of blonde, blue-eyed kids for some sort of racist poster campaign. Also, $100 licensing for a photo that you really love is cheap as chips. By personal…

I was making a single postcard per image, and needed a total of 30 separate images. These were going to a family member (30 postcards from 30 locations for her 30th birthday). Having to wait a week for each image, and pay $100 each, wasn't going to work. For personal use such as this it'd be nice if there were an easier way. Maybe Flickr could even be the middle man and take a 30% cut.

You can make the requests in parallel; it's one week total, not "a week for each image".

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#114

Post by andrewfelix »

pork wrote: post #10
Terretta wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For "content" creators, these are not absurdities, these are terms that can make or break your ability to get paid for your work and put food on the table. A photographer having to go to court to defend his ownership of photos they'd exhibited through twitpic and get paid by newspapers who claimed the ToS said he'd released his rights, demonstrates this is not a "please not again" problem, this is ongoing, big corps…

Let me rephrase GP's comment, since I felt the same thing as them. Allow me to set out a hypothetical. You find that Pinterest's terms are awful, and stage a very successful revolt with your own site, sans the offensive terms. Users flock to your site, and Pinterest dies a sad death. One of the copyright owners of your "pinned" content decides to go after you, and decides to sue the pants off you. So you freak out an…

>they aren't going away, and the best you can hope for is very minor modifications of wording with sufficient popular pressure. Good luck on that.

Sounds like what a lot of people said about SOPA.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#115

Post by prewett »

Terretta wrote: post #7
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…

For "content" creators, these are not absurdities, these are terms that can make or break your ability to get paid for your work and put food on the table. A photographer having to go to court to defend his ownership of photos they'd exhibited through twitpic and get paid by newspapers who claimed the ToS said he'd released his rights, demonstrates this is not a "please not again" problem, this is ongoing, big corps…

It seems like there is an easy solution, just never post something on the web in a format you wouldn't be ok with others using without. Post 800x600 images with a contact me link, or put your name/contact on the picture so that it is attractive but still a little bit annoying, etc.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#116

Post by andrewfelix »

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…

>Assume liability for users posting content they should not be posting?

Couldn't they avoid liability without claiming ownership of my own original work? I'm an illustrator, I believe there is a story here.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#117

Post by billpatrianakos »

andrewfelix wrote: post #116
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…

>Assume liability for users posting content they should not be posting? Couldn't they avoid liability without claiming ownership of my own original work? I'm an illustrator, I believe there is a story here.

They could and I'm not a lawyer but I'd guess there's a legal reason for it in terms of liability or they're somehow making a profit through that clause. Either way, you don't have to post anything to Pinterest and you have a way to get your content taken down via DMCA.

I read a lot of comments like this and I always wonder why it always sounds like someone is forcing you to put your content on their site. No one is obligated to post anything to any website. There are a lot of ways to put your works online and not give up your ownership. If you don't like one site's policy on this then there are plenty of others. Pinterest is free. No one is entitled to tell them how to run their business just the same as they can't force you to use it. I feel like this is lost on a lot of people. I'm just 25 but I feel old, like somehow the generation just behind me and maybe my generation too see websites like Facebook and Google and Pinterest as services that we are somehow entitled to and should be able to control without ever paying a dime. Nothing in this life is free. If you get something for nothing, take a look around. You're probably paying in some form that isn't monetary.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#118

Post by yonasb »

One phrase comes to mind after reading this: "so what." It's not about what the terms say, it's about how they're enforced. I don't see any users getting sued, just a bunch of stories on how you could potentially get sued.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#119

Post by ajross »

dangrossman wrote: post #60
ajross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much how I see it too. Yes, you own the review, which includes the right to the image for the fair use purposes of explaining the review only . There is no transitive right if you sell that review to use the image for any other purpose. I too find this insane. If anything qualifies for fair use, surely pinterest does. "Hey look at this cool thing!" is about as close as I can imagine to the platonic idea…

> No one freaked out over /r/pics, /r/pics is just a collection of links to images; it does not reproduce or redistribute the images.

Right, but that's the same sort of legalese excuse-making. It has nothing to do with whether or not /r/pics constitutes fair use, just if-it-isn't-fair-use-who-gets-sued? No one, at the time or now, seriously thought that there was a legal problem for anyone with reddit. So why pinterest? Again, part of me is really suspicious that it's because it's a chick site that doesn't cater to geeks.

Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem

#120

Post by ajross »

dangrossman wrote: post #60
ajross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much how I see it too. Yes, you own the review, which includes the right to the image for the fair use purposes of explaining the review only . There is no transitive right if you sell that review to use the image for any other purpose. I too find this insane. If anything qualifies for fair use, surely pinterest does. "Hey look at this cool thing!" is about as close as I can imagine to the platonic idea…

> No one freaked out over /r/pics, /r/pics is just a collection of links to images; it does not reproduce or redistribute the images.

Right, but that's the same sort of legalese excuse-making (or alternatively: just substitute imgur, which hosts most of that content).

It has nothing to do with whether or not /r/pics constitutes fair use, just if-it-isn't-fair-use-who-gets-sued? No one, at the time or now, seriously thought that there was a legal problem for anyone with reddit. So why pinterest? Again, part of me is really suspicious that it's because it's a chick site that doesn't cater to geeks.

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