Pinterest is more like a visual social bookmarking service than a blog. When people save bookmarks or share links on delicious or reddit or even twitter, of course they don't claim ownership of that content, it's just a bookmark. Similarly, with Pintrest people are saving a visual bookmark of something they saw that was interesting out on the web or on other social streams, tumblr, etc. I think a lot of people are missing the point here.
Pinterest, We Have a Problem
121–130 of 158 posts
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
I'm amazed that you managed construct that condescending diatribe around a simple question. Was there a tone of entitlement or demand in my question?
Your argument boils down to 'If you don't like it, don't use it.' So I guess any more discussion on the subject is henceforth mute?
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
'Aait, you put your effort where you think is best, and leave us to pursue what we think is important.
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#124Pinterest 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…
30%+ of its images are flickr images... What's the source for this?
Thin air, surely.
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#125What 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…
>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.
That assumption seems fairly inaccurate, see this quote: "Remarkably, more than one-third of the two billion views of YouTube videos with ads each week are ... uploaded without the copyright owner’s permission but left up by the owner’s choice." [1]
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/technology/03youtube.html
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flickr enables their users to mark their images as not-sharable, which now includes disabling anyone from sharing the images on Pinterest: http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/24/flickr-pinterest-pin/ Legally (IANAL but my understanding is), Pinterest only needs to comply with DMCA takedown requests. Instead they are being proactive and allow people to tag images as "nopin", vastly reducing the need for tedious or unreliab…
Legally [...] Pinterest only needs to comply with DMCA takedown requests. That didn't work out so well for MegaUpload. But then again, pinterest probably doesn't have a strong lobby working against it.
But part of the complaint against MegaUpload was that they were not complying with DMCA takedowns.
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#127I am an attorney (and as far as I can tell, the author is not one, so take his "analysis" with a pillar of salt). This is not legal advice though.
With respect to the following paragraph:
"So, if you snap an awesome photograph, upload it to your blog, and someone pins it, that person is either (1) claiming exclusive ownership of it; or (2) giving Pinterest your consent to reproduce it (and you just thought you were being flattered)."
Actually, no. You can't transfer a right you don't have. All rights to a work are vested in the author of a protected work; only the author can consent to any of the activities protected by copyright.
It's just like selling a house you don't own. First, you're committing fraud if you falsely represent that you have the right to sell it; and second, the actual owner isn't bound by anything you have done (the deed doesn't go to the putative buyer).
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#128Pinterest and Tumblr are by far the worse offenders when it comes to sharing content from other providers as its not 100% clear, or sometimes elusive, on how visitor can view the original content. Its as if these sites are cutting content providers out of the loop which is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They are essentially going to injure the entire ecosystem of sharing if they keep up with these practices (http://www.sv411.com/index.php/2012/02/pinterest-gets-caught...).
What's worse is that these shady sharing practices have begun to support a broader ecosystem of image finding scavengers such as http://www.whattopin.com (see below).
Here is a support ticket we received today at Fotoblur which illustrates the problems we are seeing (a bit of broken English but you get the picture):
"I am user the http://www.fotoblur.com/portfolio/agnieszkabalut?p=1&id=... Another user Elinka used my photo art- senza titolo2 by Agnieszka Balut....... (via Elinka) in the web-site http://www.whattopin.com/topic/photography/?id=283634 - Printerest (commercial use)
and in the http://elinka.tumblr.com/post/18734723798/senza-titolo2-by-a... without my permission.
All my images are protected by Copyright (reproduction and printing). All images on these are the exclusive property of Agnieszka Balut and protected by the Copyright . Therefore prohibited the publication and reproduction without written permission from Agnieszka Balut. Any violation will be prosecuted."
As you can see, this type of sharing confuses people. We usually explain "fair use" to them but they really don't care. They feel they have rights and they want action taken. I can fully understand why Flickr blocked Pinterest if they have been getting the complaints such as we've seen. In the end the burden falls on the image owner and what ends up happening is they have to chase down every site owner whose members improperly post their content. They then lose faith in participating at all because of their inability to control their content.
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#129I am an attorney (and as far as I can tell, the author is not one, so take his "analysis" with a pillar of salt). This is not legal advice though. With respect to the following paragraph: "So, if you snap an awesome photograph, upload it to your blog, and someone pins it, that person is either (1) claiming exclusive ownership of it; or (2) giving Pinterest your consent to reproduce it (and you just thought you were b…
And there in lies the problem with TOS (or is the problem with the law?) if one needs to be an attorney to understand them, what hope is there for the ordinary folk - just saying. No wonder people just click through.
Re: Pinterest, We Have a Problem
#130Pinterest 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…
To be fair, Flickr has implemented the ability to opt out of "pinning" via a setting: http://www.flickr.com/account/prefs/sharing?from=privacy This adds the "nopin" meta tag to your pages automatically. However, to be even more fair, the burden was on Flickr to implement this, not Pinterest. Pinterest is still encouraging copyright violation.
Exactly, the onus should be upon Pinterest not Flickr.