I’m a huge fan of Pinterest. In fact, its co-head cheese, Ben Silbermann, is a Des Moines, Iowa native – so I’m always rooting for the local guy. And in the 2011 whirlwind growth pattern that Pinterest experienced, it catapulted itself as my #1 referrer by such a margin that the #2, #3 and #4 referrers combined still don’t equal the number of hits I get from Pinterest.
If you’re not sharing content and receiving traffic from Pinterest, you are missing a huge viral opportunity.
But in its rapid growth, there are some issues Pinterest has failed to address.
Can Pinterest continue to allow free reign in over-sharing?
The answer is no. Since the general public is blissfully ignorant about what constitutes intellectual property copyright infringement, who should be responsible for policing such errant behavior and what kind of counter action can bloggers take who have had entire posts pinned?
Here’s the problem:
Blogger, let’s call her Jane, writes a post. She photographs the content and publishes her post. She does so either as a professional blogger to support her family, or as writer to reach, entertain, educate, etc her readership. The blog’s success relies on traffic that finds her, delights in her hard work, subscribes, and keeps coming back. Bloggers rely on visitors, subscribers and readers to click ads to remain profitable.
Pinning her content is a wonderful way to help propagate her efforts. Pinterest, by definition, is meant to be a pin board – a visual collective of inspiring and beautiful ideas. By pinning her article, you give her a boost of traffic and tell others you love her work.
But what’s happening more and more isn’t a simple share. Pinners are copying and pasting entire recipes, entire how-to posts, whole articles. Pinterest users then have no reason to click back to find Jane’s blog because the work in its entirety is already provided.
Good:
The above pins are wonderful examples of crediting the content owners, summarizing, or sharing just enough to encourage click-through. (**edit** Since they are hard to read, they are credited to, in order: Centsational Girl, Peanut Butter Browneye Cupcakes, @improvephoto, and Adolph Sutro.)
Bad:
In each of the above examples, pinners over-shared or didn’t credit. No need to click these pins. (**edit: Since they are hard to read, they are credited to: google.com and “uploaded by user”. The photo of the girl is mine, although I didn’t pin it. It took a little research {phew!} but the second image should be credited to: Preschool Alphabet. If you’re the rightful owner of the other two, let me know.)
The result is sabotage of the original owner’s work and infringement on her intellectual property. She actually receives very little traffic back and soon credit for the work is so buried in pins she isn’t even acknowledged for the content she created.
And even though the pinner probably meant to share the blog post with well-meaning intent, a pinner who does this is hurting, not helping, the blogger. The long-term possible result? The blogger sees less traffic, finds her blog isn’t profitable, and closes shop. By over-sharing, we are sabotaging the bloggers we love most!
Until pinterest can put some limits in place, we can police ourselves by using some basic good manners.
Some Pinterest etiquette:
- Always share the permalink. Make sure you are on the individual post NOT the main URL or scrolled page number when you pin. Otherwise, by the time the pin propagates, the post is no longer at the top, and the content cannot be found.
- Share only the post title or a summary statement about the post. Pinterest is only a visual inspiration board. It is NOT a re-blogging machine.
- Don’t pin from Google images. Google doesn’t own those, click back to content owner.
- Credit the original content creator whenever possible. Name the blogger, the photographer, or rightful owner.
Should Pinterest be accountable for copyright infringement? Should over-sharing pinners be held responsible for stealing content?
How do YOU think this issue should be addressed? Discuss.
**update! Readers have spoken! I made a graphic summarizing the post to pin on Pinterest.
Pin It
Pinterest has become my #1 referrer as well ~ and I’m with you on how stuff should be pinned.
I’m not sure how Pinterest would be able to handle the copyright issue….hmmm…
Wow, so glad you posted this….I had no idea about a few of these things. Interesting.
I love pinterest and get a reasonable amount of traffic from there. With that said, I think a good thing to do might be for them to put a character limit on descriptions. I really don’t like it when things pop up in my pinterest feed with ridiculously long descriptions underneath anyway.
As for intellectual property, I do wish that they would disallow pinning from google image search. Not only does that annoy me as a blogger, but it also drives me crazy as a user of Pinterest when I would like to click through to consider purchasing an item or reading a blog post and it’s just a google image.
I feel as though one of the big problems with not crediting original sources comes not from Pinterest itself but actually from Tumblr, a lot of beautiful images are shared (uncredited) around on there and then eventually end up being pinned. It’s then pretty difficult to find the source.
totally agree!!! I hate hate hate LONG descriptions on the images. thats NOT what its for
character limit is a great idea. I think that will go a long way.
I think that would make a lot of bloggers happy.
I like that idea too!
What a great idea! It would allow others to share but at the same generate enough interest for people to visit the actual blog.
Excellent post!! I had an entire recipe copied and Pinned. It really ticked me off because I spent hours editing photos, writing the post…not to mention cooking!
The Pinterest user single-handedly made sure that no one would need to click over to my blog- where I earn a small amount of money from ads, etc.
I LOVE Pinterest, and I love sharing my finds, but I try to be very careful top credit sources within the description of my Pin. Pinterest has been a great source of traffic for me, but I wish they’d take away the option to copy whole posts…maybe if they limited the characters you can use in a description???
I LOVE Pinterest and I have many boards now for the various things I love. I myself like to find the original links and make sure recipes are complete, DIY instructions are complete and mostly LOVE to find MORE content that is so cool I want to PIN THAT! I also uploaded photos I have taken. People like and repin, if they don’t credit me ohwell….But I don’t make my living from blogging. Anyway- nothing is perfect., nor will it ever be. I am just thankful for Pinterest and the joy is spreads in our world.
I too have noticed this and wondered… I don’t do it when I pin things and have even taken all the “stuff” out when I’ve repinned… I will be more diligent on removing that stuff when I see it also… as a photographer I know how important it is to give credit where credit is due. Thank you for posting this… I WILL share
It is unfortunate that we have to even have this come up. I am sure that some people are pinning things with descriptions not thinking about others repinning them, so they are just putting the directions right there in the description for themselves so they don’t have to go back to that website over and over again. In which case they should just jot the recipe down or print it and keep it in their kitchen or bookcase. I often find a pin that goes to a page on a blog and the post that was pinned isn’t on page 5 anymore. I search for it and pin it again instead of repinning with a general url- because I want to be able to find it again. I also rarely repin something without looking at the origins first. Some are just pictures that don’t really go to a recipe, tutorial, or article and may not be worth my pinning time, so I want to be sure it has a good source and is going to be beneficial if I come back to it. I don’t want long descriptions or instructions- I usually change the description to something new anyway, you know, to make it more relevant to me.
I just wish everything we do didn’t require some form of policing in order to keep everyone honest.
this >> “I just wish everything we do didn’t require some form of policing in order to keep everyone honest.”
I thought that in Pinterest there’s always the permalink or “from—– (website)”! It’s such an inspirational tool that I’m addicted to!
Thanks for the tips!
Very interesting food for thought. I can’t believe there’s people out there who think the web is a free for all!!! Pinterest is definitely one of my top 5 referrers and I hope the community can be respectful of others and see that the beauty of pinterest is taking you back to the SOURCE!
PS – I shared on FB
Education is key like this post from you. I will pin this so others can be educated too!
I understand about giving credit and I do when I can. My problem is that the @ symbol hasn’t always worked w/ my pins. I was able to do it early on and then I worried if it became redundant for the person who posted it to receive a notifcation.
I’m new to pinterest and haven’t pinned a thing yet. I’m a little overwhelmed with it all. This is an eye opener. I could see me start pinning all my favorites and mistakenly post content from a blogger because I didn’t think it through. Thanks for sharing. You and Nester have made some things clearer.
I’m glad you posted this as I had no idea you needed to pin the actual post and not the main blog page! Good advice. I think Pinterest is GREAT for keeping track of so many things such as pictures, blogs and recipes you love, and it is nice that it brings so much traffic for those who make money from their blogs. I can feel your pain, seeing things copied and pasted and losing the credit, but I also HATE how EVERYTHING seems to have a legal tag on it these days! In no way do I think pinterest or people in general should be sought out for copyright infringement. (Except in cases where they really are obviously and purposely copying and claiming things as their own.) Most people are very innocent in their pinning.
I will think more about the original sources now and making sure things get pinned correctly! I’d hate for our favorite blogs to lose out just because we pinned something wrong!
Is it sad to say that I hadn’t even given this a thought?
It makes sense though – people MUST be hurting from this all because some are too carefree to link back (I’ve probably done it, too!). While I don’t want to overreact to the situation, I would think that Pinterest should be held liable for any copyright infringement that ensues. While we, as users, should use responsibly, they’re promoting and allowing a behavior that they are bound to know is borderline illegal.
I’m sure they never intended for it to be that way, of course, but as a site that is used for storing images found online, you would think this would have been something they should have address before their site rolled out to the masses. It just seems to be a legal matter that would have to have been addressed prior to its creation, no?
At the end of the day I suppose that all we can do as the general public is use responsibly, as you said! I’ll be spreading the word about this post. We should all give these things a thought – if not to avoid a legal matter then simply to support others!
Side note: I do think that Pinterest can be incredibly beneficial to bloggers, as you said. We just need to use it with care!
I agree, this is a really frustrating issue. Another thing that drives me crazy is bloggers (especially a few big-name design bloggers who ought to know better) putting together a blog post full of images they have taken from pinterest, and then attributing them by saying “find all these images on my Pinterest”…and then expect you to comb through thousands of their pins to find the pin for the source. Drives me nuts.
Yes! Great post on “Pintiquette”, Darcy!
So you didn’t give credit for using those examples above. I can’t click thru and I assume those aren’t your photos. Oops..?
It’s funny how many times I see bloggers stick footies in mouthies so easily!
In the above example – the GOOD are already credited in the descriptions or ON the image.
The BAD cannot be credited, because I cannot find the original source. One is my own photograph – the others are credited to “google.com” and “uploaded by user.”
That is precisely WHY they are listed as poor examples. They simply cannot be traced back to their rightful content owners.
If you know them, or can trace them – I’d gladly provide links to the rightful owners. If you ARE the rightful owner, please let me know. I’d be happy to go back in a give you the long-overdue rightful credit.
I went back in and added the credits in the post, not just in the photos, so now it’s very easy to read.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Some great guidelines!
For me, I try not to browse Pinterest too much, but rather try to find content on the web and pin it. For awhile, it seemed like the main Pinterest page was just six or seven images that had been repinned a hundred times and I was determined to try and add some new content.
I also try not to post directions in full when I pin something for the first time – though I might add a reminder to try something differently or about where I wanted to put the item, etc.
Also, I see a lot less pins being from main homepages than I used to – more direct links to articles, tutorials and recipes. I always check before I repin something that isn’t just an outfit to make sure the directions are at the end of the link.
I will make an effort now to include references to the original artist/blogger/creator of the item – that’s a fantastic guideline.
This won’t be an issue for long. If Congress passes the SOPA law Pinterest, and most blogs for the matter, will no longer exist. Any site with copyrighted material will be pulled down completely. Facebook, YouTube, and Amazon will likely be removed as well.
I’m not sure SOPA can pass as written. Time will tell. I think Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest could enable forms kind of link inlinkz does (name, email, URL of source, etc) before uploading.
Facebook now has a release form pop up before you upload videos or images for the first time where you agree the content is original. This releases them from liability (at least, in theory…).
SOPA would need some pretty specific tweaking, I believe to get approval. I have NOT read H.R. 3261, though, only reactions to it.
SOPA – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
H.R. 3261 – http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.3261:
Interesting issue you have raised about pininterest. I’ve been using it off and on and pinned a couple of stuff which I’ve found interesting including things from my blog. To prevent people from lifting content from my blog I’ve disabled right click so it prevents lifting of pictures/text.
Pinterest could still pin your images, and people could still get them. Right-click disabling the site is a reminder that it’s a no-no, but it certainly wouldn’t stop anyone who really wants the image.
We’re forced to rely on the good nature of our fellow web users. I truly believe 99% of web users are well-meaning.
I understand what you are saying and totally agree. I do have to say I love Pinterest and would not have found many blogs I follow if it wasn’t for this site. I hope they figure it out and everyone is happy.
Ok…..I hate to be the only one to see the other side to this but….
With the bad comes the good, I guarantee you many of these bloggers have had the traffic to their blog increase a great deal as result of Pinterest. So perhaps a few posts don’t get linked back, but there are also tons that do!
I mentioned pinterest being my #1 referrer. It’s been such a valuable propagation tool for many bloggers.
If they all were linked properly, it could mean a big difference for that blogger’s generated income! Esp when those uncredited pins go super viral.
If you look at the general pinterest.com you’ll find most pins DO trace back to the original content. That’s part of what makes Pinterest so ingenious!
Great article! I agree that pinterest is a double edged sword of sorts for bloggers – it generates traffic but often eliminates the need to visit your blog at all. I have a very small blog and I have found that my traffic has soared in the past month or two since I pinned some of my own posts – however, sadly, my followers has barely increased at all. I think pinterest has deleted a lot of the neccesity for following and it makes it hard to grow a small blog. I agree with so many of the comments above – a character limit would help so much! Thanks for taking the time to educate us all
Thank you for this great post! I had no idea! In turn, I went through all my pinterest posts and deleted the ones that did not have ownership. I sure hope more people will read your post!
As a user of pinterest and not a blogger, I had no idea that so many people were using blogging to make money. I am sure there are many more out there like me that just love the info and had no idea about the money. I do not put the whole post in my description and I always go to the blog to make sure that there is a good link and then look around for more ideas. A character limit would help, but I think some education for those of us who don’t know, would be beneficial also. Thank you for all of the great information you all share and I hope this gets solved in everyone’s best interest.
I have been enjoying Pinterest, but you have a point about the non-crediting thing. Not only is it unfair to the original writer, but also unfair to someone trying to find the original content. I hate when I find “uploaded by user”. How am I supposed to know where to go?!
i’m feeling like a craphead right about now.
pardon my french.
er . . . . is craphead french? or just crude? never mind.
i haven’t “pinned” anything like you have talked about, but I have “re-pinned” something. a recipe. and i’ve tried to follow all the pins back to the original source and can’t find the bloomin’ thang! of course, that is not relieving my guilt. but then again, i don’t want to delete it because i really want to make it some day. does that make me an awful person? am i really a craphead?
there’s that word again.
naughty girl. naughty naughty naughty.
still love me?
signed,
confused conscience
No, no, no no… don’t feel bad. There are some pins which are wonderful ideas that simply cannot be traced. That marshmallow popcorn pin? That’s from *my* board. I cannot find the source.
I would love to credit that recipe. Surely someone can find the rightful owner?
I feel really bad because I have re-pinned some “bad” pins not knowing they were in the wrong. When I pin directly from the internet I always just use the original title. I hardly ever change the comments in the repins just because I don’t pay much attention to them. I always go to the original source for the pin. I have never used the text in the pin to make something. I guess that is why I never thought much of it and I assumed if it was wrong then the owners of Pinterest would of put a stop to it. I received an email from Pinterest about a pin that I re-pinned saying the owner of the content did not want their information on their site so they removed it (it was a picture of a kitchen). That is why I assumed if there was a problem with anything the pins would be removed by request of the owner. Now I know differently thank you for the information…by the way I found this on Pinterest via Centsational Girl. I have just deleted all my boards and I will start from scratch and now I know exactly what can be pinned or re-pinned.
I love pinterest and really hope it does not go away. I sometimes get lazy and repin what others have pinned without changing descriptions which comes back to annoy me later on. What I really hate is when items are pinned to the main page of a blog and then I can’t find the damn thing I want. SO frustrating!!! People PLEASE pin to the actual blog post (permalink) not the main page! I am guilty though about not using the @ symbol and retyping the blog source in the description as I thought when I pinned to the permalink that was giving credit to the blog.
I think the @ isn’t necessary if it’s linked properly. As long as the source can be traced. But it’s a nice courtesy for those who use Pinterest at-a-glance.
The ones I struggle with – and perhaps you can all weigh in…
Pins like this: http://pinterest.com/pin/248472104411004828/
It’s “uploaded by user.” It’s incredibly useful and educational information. I cannot trace a credit… how do you all handle pins like those? Do we skip them, for propriety??
I agree about everything you’re saying. I think we, as bloggers, need to be smart about our pictures. Putting watermarks, or posting our web address on each picture, which will help to get it credited back to our blogs and websites. It’s a big pain…it is, it costs me many, many hours of work – but since Pinterest is my biggest referral {like you, it blows everyone else out of the water}, it’s worth it to me. I often see a lot of bloggers not doing that and it would really be helpful. Anytime I post something on my blog about a pin I’ve found, I ALWAYS go and find the source and now credit the original source so THEY get the credit, not Pinterest. Great post…found this ON…yep, Pinterest!
Becky B.
http://www.organizingmadefun.com
Organizing Made Fun
I am going to be very honest here and probably be the unpopular commenter here. You raise some valid points here but I have to disagree with the tone that you want to set for Pinterest. I pin images for myself, it is my virtual pinboard and I don’t want to be told what “should be/shouldn’t be” done as it takes away the spontaneity and fun of Pinterest. You write about financial gain, a point you brought up that people’s blogs will be shut down if traffic were no longer redirected there, which is an exaggeration. If a blogger has regular readers, people are going to continue reading it, whether or not the blogger is credited in Pinterest. I do not believe that pinners have the intention to take away income from hardworking bloggers, after all Pinterest is merely a pinboard. I also noticed that some of your readers felt bad after reading your post, one to the extent of deleting all her images and starting from scratch. I felt bad initially after reading your post because I felt that I was guilty or had done something wrong but it got me thinking. When I pin, I do it mindfully because I know that others might want to know where the source is from. But there are times when some of the products like shoes, clothes are from flash sales and pinning them to the website and letting others see a broken link is pointless. I don’t believe that pinners are claiming that the work is theirs and that others are smart enough to discern that because it is not a blog or a website. I have a huge pinboard at home which is filled with reminders, recipes, to do lists, photos – mostly things I want to come back and refer to later. And that is the purpose of Pinterest, they have made it easier for us – so please do not think of it as a place to make an income. No to policing!
I totally agree with you Megan. I love pinterest and I love sharing things I find with fellow pinners. I get so excited when I find something that I think others will appriciate. I would never intentially try and hurt these creative blogers. However, I feel like in a way they are< "biting the hand who feeds them". If it were not for pinterest I would have never foud several of the bolgers that I follow on
I love Pinterest. I’d love to see it grow. I’d love to see the way people use it change just a little bit though.
I don’t believe Pinterest is there for income gain. And it’s not only a financial issue, not in the least. It’s a copyright issue. And whether or not Pinterest is simply a person’s playground or not – giving credit where credit is due is always the right thing to do. Because it might not matter to you, but it matters a lot to the writer, author, photographer who is a breadwinner for her family and all she has to offer is her ideas.
The misconception here is that stealing content is okay. It’s not “bad” like, say, stealing candy or stealing a car. But they are essentially the same idea. Either way means a loss for the owner; just because it’s not tangible doesn’t mean it’s okay. And THAT is where Pinterest, I believe, needs to step up and where WE need to be accountable.
The point of op ed pieces like this IS to make you feel something. To raise consciousness and make the experience better for everyone. I, too, totally cringed that someone would delete and start over. When I encourage pinners to be more cognizant of their time online, I’m thrilled to hear people are rethinking their pins. I cleaned up my boards as well – especially my early pins before I understood the impact it could have.
As a new user of Pinterest, I pinned quite ignorantly. It really wasn’t until my 31 Days posts were pinned in a way that made it unnecessary to click back did I feel the sting of how Pinterest could be used abusively. And those who are really get stung hard? Food bloggers. How-to bloggers. They are getting hit the hardest, from what I’ve seen.
I’m going to stick to my guns on this one, even though I absolutely love that we can all feel safe and can exercise all sorts of varying opinions. Pinterest needs to implement character limits, and needs to have an easier way for bloggers to counteract when their work is being overshared – before it goes viral. We, as users, can be more cognizant of how we share other’s content.
The reason I deleted my boards is because I had too many re-pins to go through and I honestly did not think it worth the time. Pinterest has become a daily ritual and takes up too much time that I could use doing something else. I love the idea of Pinterest but I don’t have the time to go back and fix every re-pin. So I just rather start over. To be honest I just went ahead and deleted my account. If I like something I can bookmark it and look at it later. As I said before I never directly pinned anything without giving proper credit but I re-pin more than pin directly from the internet myself. I do appreciate your honesty in what you feel is appropriate etiquette for Pinterest. I completely agree with you about giving credit where credit is due and I would never want to be a part of something that would cause any “harm” to someone’s work. So please do not cringe at the thought that I deleted my account it was what was best for me personally.
I’m so glad you clarified that, Catherine.
I’d be sorry to see you close down Pinterest, but it certainly can be a time suck, can’t it? My goodness. It’s beautiful and interesting… and then poof! there went 45 minutes!
I agree with you Cameron. I also “pin images for myself” and use it as “my virtual pinboard and I don’t want to be told what “should be/shouldn’t be” done as it takes away the spontaneity and fun of Pinterest.”
By chance – are you guys bloggers or do you publish content online? I’d be curious to know if those who believe free reign of content management is fine have original content online.
It would be an interesting statistic.
Those who have nothing to lose probably care much less about content management. If someone was going in to your yard and stealing your plants, but not mine – I’d probably be less invested in seeing the plant-nabber nabbed.
My theory then is that food bloggers, how-to bloggers, writers, and photographers care much more about this since it’s their intellectual property being nabbed. Those who are doing the nabbing or those whose work isn’t intangible content aren’t affected and therefore feel apathetic about the issue. But that’s just a theory…
There’re probably many people on both sides of this issue. That’s why I’m glad we can discuss it.
Darcy, I completely agree. For those who do not publish content online, no big loss to them at all. Online content is intellectual property. Much like writing a book or a song. Which is precisely why we have copyright laws. Again, educating the masses is important.
I am a studio photographer specializing fashion photography although I have taken a break since I had children and I blog but it is unrelated to my work. I have been through what you have experienced – a magazine took a photo that we shot and published it without our permission. I am sympathetic to your annoyance at not being credited for tips that you painstakingly posted. There is some element of risk of that all the time, once you put your work out in public for all to see that it can be used illegally. However, I think you need to distinguish between those who are using your work to gain money directly (eg by saying it is their own) or those that are not. In your case, where your photo was not credited back to you – you need to ascertain if this person is claiming it as his/her own or for financial gains. Or was it a mere note to himself/herself of how to take a good picture? Educating the public with informative posts like yours today is good but I feel that Pinterest should still be left free without bringing in new restrictions. Pinterest is creating a lot of traffic for you and if you start restricting it you might find that you lose a lot of that traffic.
As a side point- you talk about copywrite but the law does permit ‘fair use’ without the need to acknowledge ownership. I am not a lawyer but someone repining a photo with crediting you may not necessarily and automatically be breaking the law. All I am saying is that this whole issue of copywrite and intellectual property is not as black and white as you are making it out.
Again, speaking candidly, as a photographer, nothing that we do is original anymore, our ideas, poses, lighting is not new, we have somehow “borrowed” these ideas and incorporated them as our own. I would say that baby photos were not so prominent until Anne Geddes (whose work I would call original) came along and up sprouted a new wave of photographers putting new born babies in pods, baskets.
I meant to type “copyright” not “copywrite” – My brain is not functioning well without coffee this morning!
I think it would be a different story if you could pin to a private board for your own use…..but that fact that when you pin, it’s open to be seen and repined is why “rules” need to be followed and respected.
I understand the thought of “it’s my pin board, I don’t want to be told what to do”……….but those pins you are pinning and how/what you do with them have a trickle down effect.
I admit, I have been haphazardly pinning away on Pinterest, not knowing the havoc it is apparently is reeking. But in regards to the original blog getting the credit – I have been noticing that in the upper-right corner, above the pinned picture (after you pin it to your board)- it has the origination of the pin. Is this not enough credit?
It’s my opinion that if the pin links to the permalink, it’s proper credit enough.
great post. good comments.
I adore Pinterest; it is an invaluable tool for me already. But I agree with what you say in your post!
One thing that I wish Pinterest did was give an indication as to WHO actually wrote the comment that sits in the comment box. For many reasons {so people know when it is my voice, and when it is not especially}, but also so things like reposting entire posts can be accurately handled at the source of the Pinner.
thanks for a great conversation!
I believe that the wording in the description is automatically from the original post. I’ve repinned things, changing the description to something that pertains to me and then seen it repinned from me with the description that was there before I repinned it. So it probably is the original description that pops up.
Most of the people using Pinterest incorrectly honestly don’t know. They probably are not bloggers, so they don’t think about the details. They are just wanting to keep that fantastic brownie recipe.
It’s great that you are educating them, Darcy!
I wish that Pinterest would put some safeguards in place to protect the writers/bloggers. They could add some code to double check that the pinner is adding from a permalink and not a homepage, for example. And the comments area could be limited to a short, 200 character box. I find Pinterest a great concept, but it has lots of weird bugs and issues, especially when combined with Twitter.
(fee reign? think you’ve got a type-o there)
This is an interesting idea, adding some code to disallow home pages. Except what if someone is just wanting to pin a blog itself for future reference? You know, someone who doesn’t use an RSS feed- because there ARE people out there like that. My husband, the programmer said it is definitely possible though. Perhaps a better option might be for a mandatory new user sign up tour that shows proper pinning when signing up for pinterest, you know with examples of a home page being pinned versus clicking on the actual post- and possibly a mandatory one for those already signed up. I don’t know. It was all there in words when I joined, but some people still don’t get it. Some people aren’t internet savvy or blog savvy and just plain don’t understand. Character limits would also help.
This is an interesting topic. And I agree that Pinterest should try, as much as possible, to make it tough NOT to include a proper link back to the originator of the image/recipe/info. Character limits might be a good start.
As a former family photographer (I closed my business 2 years ago) I’ve seen this issue come up over and over again re:copyright and online sharing of copyrighted content. It used to drive me crazy that photographers would complain that a client stole an image from their website and printed it on their own, all the while playing copyrighted music on said website that they’re using to make a profit. So many photographers and bloggers don’t understand that this is the SAME thing.
Also, I’ve seen many very popular bloggers pinning the “free” workout videos that someone has pirated from Beachbody (P90X etc). These are not FREE! They have been copied illegally by someone and distributed illegally online. The pendulum swings both ways. If we ask people to be diligent in helping, we have to be cognizant of the impact of our own behaviour too.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is a can of worms was opened up well before Pinterest ever existed and will continue beyond any changes made to Pinterest in an effort to help. And that everyone needs to understand that when you put something online, it’s there for the taking whether you like it or not. You can hope people won’t steal, and try to discourage in any way possible, but unless you watermark your images/recipes etc there isn’t much else you can do to assure your content won’t be used inappropriately or won’t be linked/attributed correctly.
This post brings up a valuable discussion and I’m really glad you started it
That’s the first I’d heard of the workout video… but I guess it doesn’t surprise me.
Great point about watermarking!
I’m trying to learn to watermark videos now that those are linked on Pinterest, and when you click on the video there, instead of linking back here, it plays the video IN pinterest. Baby steps…
Some really great advice. I was wondering myself about Pinteresters and Copy-write issues.
Great post and great conversation!! I could go from comment to comment and say ‘ditto’ to many.
I appreciated that part about not pinning from Google. Yesterday my husband called me an hour before his program was to start. (He’s a children’s pastor in a new position.) His craft person for a part of the program had car trouble and didn’t have a way to get in. She of course had everything in her possession. So…he called me to see if I had any ideas. I said, I’d pinned several ideas and thought that there would be something that he could pull together and not go shopping. I went to my board but what I’d remembered was from Christmas. So…I entered my topic in to ‘search’ in Pinterest. I saw some fun images, pinned them to my board and then went to see if they had tutorials, etc. My husband is craft challenged. To my dismay most had been pinned from Google and had no links of any sort. So, I copied the photos into an e-mail and then came up with my own supply list and tutorial from the photograph. Seriously, that really put me under the gun time-wise. He called me after he got the e-mail and went to his supply closet and we talked through the materials he had on hand. It all worked out in the end. But, how much better would it have been if I’d been able to go to the original post and send the link of that to him.
My other beef is people generally not crediting their sources, whether it’s on their blogs or Facebook or whatever and making it seem like those photos are theirs. Plus it isn’t helpful. Especially when you see a great whatever and you want to learn more. The story ends right there. And leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth.
Aside from the above there are lots of questions…many have been asked in the comments. It would seem that Pinterest would do well to remind people in their weekly updates how to be good pinners. I think I learned it from reading a blog, maybe Sorta Crunchy or Jennifer Rizzo’s not sure which. Maybe Pinterest should also delete all Google links, or automatically restrict those from being posted.
You can always open a window with google images and then drag and drop the image from the pin into that window in the search field. It will search for similar pictures. It can take a lot of looking through websites depending on what it finds, or you might not find it at all. I have had some luck finding original sources this way, but not always.
That’s really helpful to know!
I dont blog and someone else may have already said this but… Maybe Pinterest could have a character limit to the description kinda like Twitter. I hate it when there is a big long thing about all they ways you can use vinigar! When I would rather go to the original site to see that, its more put together there and isnt taking up so much Pinterest space LOL That being said I can never trust it when it gives all the instructions in the description so I am always going to the original site anyway.
thank you! for sharing this so succinctly. I’ve had the exact same thoughts on “over sharing”, long posts, no credit given, etc. Hoping Pinterest will only get better & your article is a great step in that direction
I think having the ability to privately pin something would be nice. I save a lot of stuff using Delicious dot com, but I do it all privately, because it’s all this random stuff that isn’t necessarily coherent, but I need to remember it for a certain blog post or freelance writing research. It would be nice if Pinterest had a character limit for public pins, but a section where you could add private pins too. Sometimes it’s easier to just see a quick synopsis–of a simple recipe, for example–than to have to always click back to the original blog. It’s hard, because as a blogger, I completely agree with you. But as a busy mom with 5 million things on my plate, I understand why people type the entire recipe or description in their pin.
Fantastic post. Thanks for doing this. I’ve had a couple posts get pinned and repinned and repinned on pinterest which is fabulous – and I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve been given credit – but that doesn’t mean that will always happen. Thanks for encouraging common courtesy
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