Pinterest & Pin it button & Copyright

[Stock-Photos]

<p>If clicking the "pin-it" button under our images on photo.net (by pinterest users) results in Pinterest re-hosting our images (copying the image to pinterest servers), <strong>photo.net users should have the option to opt-out of the "pin-it" button</strong> on the grounds of copyright.</p>

<p>If that option is already in place can someone point me to it?</p>

<p>Also photo.net could, and in my opinion should, implement code to prevent images on photo.net from being "pinned" aka added to the pinterest web servers.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I'm <strong>not</strong> talking about <em>links</em> to pages or even <em>hotlinking</em> to image files. I'm talking about my images on photo.net being saved to the pinterest servers.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I just spent lots of time filling out pinterest DCMA forms to have them remove dozens of my images from their servers.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for any help.</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>Have you tried the "Sharing links: <strong>disable</strong> | enable" option in your workspace?<a href="/pvt/home"><small><br /></small></a></p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>Bob's response does indeed disable sharing, but contrary to the pop-up description in that Pinterest sharing actually moves a copy of ones image to the other site. </p>

<p>This is the pop-up description:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"When you choose to "allow" sharing links, a white box will appear above each of your photos on Photo.net, similar to the one pictured in the screenshot below. The white box contains links that make it easy for other users to promote and discuss your images on popular "social bookmarking" sites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, and Del.icio.us. The "bookmarking" process doesn't actually move a copy of your image onto another site, but merely shares a link ("bookmark") pointing back to your original image posted on Photo.net. These sites are a great tool for getting your photography noticed by a broader audience."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Disabling the feature also does not prevent photo.net from circumventing it independently, if it chose to. </p>

[bobatkins]

<p>True. The description was obviously written for the original version of the sharing toolbar (doesn't mention Facebook, Twitter or Google+) and not even updated when the Pinterest button was added and the method of sharing changed by that.</p>

<p>I believe that Pinterest (which is indeed a giant compendium of copyright violations) does link back to the original image, but also grabs and displays a copy of that image.</p>

<p>Photo.net can indeed use any contributed image to promote photo.net "<em>you grant photo.net the right to... ...publicly display your User Content on the Site and to promote the Site</em>", but that's another issue.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>J.H., could Pinterest serve any purpose as part of your marketing strategy? For example, I know of several photographers who are enthusiastic users of all kinds of social media and photo sharing sites. Their goal is to sell books and prints. Reproduction of smallish JPEGs online doesn't detract from that goal - quite the opposite, these web venues enhance their visibility. So they widely use Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest and other popular web outlets.</p>

<p>Let's say that right this moment I "Like" <a href="/photo/8330504"><strong>this photo of yours</strong></a> because the graphic approach to birds in flight appeals to my own personal aesthetics. A thumbnail of that photo now appears on my Facebook page - and I'll probably write a little blurb about how I like that photo because of the graphic silhouetted approach. Anyone who's on my FB contact list can see it. If they want to see a larger view, they click on it and go directly to your photo.net page. And maybe, just maybe, that person is looking for exactly this type of photo and may wish to contact you about licensing.</p>

<p>Just depends on whether it suits your own marketing strategy.</p>

<p>At the moment the only problem I see with photo.net's Pinterest page is that it doesn't directly link back to the individual photographer's own portfolio page. Right now the photos are hosted on staging.photo.net, rather than linking directly back to the photographers' personal photo.net pages. I've seen other photo.net photos pinned to Pinterest user's personal accounts that do link directly back to the original photo.net page, so it can be done.</p>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>Lex, I understand the value of the social network sharing buttons. In fact I use them, as an avid user of Google+.</p>

<p>My isssue is fact that Pinterest saves a new copy of my images to its servers. Linking is one thing, re-hosting is another.</p>

<p>Photographer's copyrights are being trampled everywhere on the Web and with the Pin-It buttons, photo.net is contributing to it, even if unintentionally.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/250700/what_you_should_know_about_pinterest_and_copyright.html">http://www.pcworld.com/article/250700/what_you_should_know_about_pinterest_and_copyright.html</a></p>

<p>P interest is a business whos VCs are banking on copyright law not being adhered to or enforced.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"My isssue is fact that Pinterest saves a new copy of my images to its servers. Linking is one thing, re-hosting is another."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's a valid point. Without the link directly back to the photographer's page the benefit accrues primarily to the site rather than shared with the photographer.</p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>I haven't looked into it deeply but there are also many photos tagged "photo.net" on Tumblr with quite a few pictures from familiar names:<br>

<a href="http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/photo.net">http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/photo.net</a></p>

[carashilaire]

<p>Definitely understand your concern. Some people love the traffic that Pinterest brings and some do not. <br /><br />Just a word about Pinterest and how it works for those of you who may not know. Even if photo.net didn't have a "pin it" button, people could still pin your photos by adding in the URL. Nearly anything online can be pinned b/c it is a way for people to go back and find links that they were interested in. Kindof like a visual bookmark if you will. A shirt at Macy's, an image from a blog, a photo on Flickr, etc. <br /><br />The pinned photo shows up on Pinterest in various sizes (depending on the size of the image) but not too huge. When you click on it, it links back to the photo on photo.net.<strong> So, though the image will appear on Pinterest, if you click on it, it will bring you right to your photo on photo.net.</strong><br>

Here is an example. Photo.net pinned a photo from the recent article: "Best Photo Books of 2013." When you click the photo, it brings you right to the article. <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/226939268696704618/">http://www.pinterest.com/pin/226939268696704618/ </a><br /><br />A photograph on photo.net would be handled the same way - and it would indeed link directly to the photographer's page, benefitting the photographer with extra exposure. Here is an example of a pinned photo. <strong>Click on it</strong> and it will bring you to the photo page. <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/226939268696740604/">http://www.pinterest.com/pin/226939268696740604/</a><br>

Hope that helps explain a little more. </p>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>Maybe someone at photo.net could share some data on just how much traffic p interest drives to photo.net.</p>

<p>Am I the only photography who sees something wrong with Pinterest copying images to their servers specifically do display on their site? It's a bad business plan. Yes, I understand image search engines make small thumbnails of images to help users find them, but that is entirely different.<br>

Pinterest's investors (helped by their users)are building a huge business by side-stepping or ignoring DMCA.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/250700/what_you_should_know_about_pinterest_and_copyright.html">http://www.pcworld.com/article/250700/what_you_should_know_about_pinterest_and_copyright.html</a></p>

<p>Leosghost has some notable commentary in his second or third post down on this page:<br>

<a href="http://www.webmasterworld.com/pinterest/4561789.htm">http://www.webmasterworld.com/pinterest/4561789.htm</a></p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>At the moment, photo.net's Pinterest page does not consistently link the displayed photos directly back to the photographer's original portfolio page. I'm seeing several that link back to photo.net's random image generator page. The photos that appear there do not always match those viewed on the Pinterest page.</p>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>If users of pinterest have the full size image in-front of them, displayed directly from pinterest servers, they have no need or incentive to click on the image at all. Right? What would be the benefit of the pinterest user to click?<br /> <br /> It would seem to be that if photo.net user content is" pinned" en masse to p interest, it will take traffic away from photo.net, more so than drive traffic to it.</p>

<p>Thankfully search <em>image</em> engines are not currently giving pinterest hosed images much weight. That could change and if it does it'll likely take traffic away from photo.net.</p>

<p>If this link doesn't do the search (it'll likely prompt you to join) got to pinterest.com and use the search tool to search for "photo.net" Probably hundreds of thousands of results, content hijacked, IMO. Flagrant infringement of photographers rights, plain and simple.</p>

<p><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=photo.net">https://www.pinterest.com/search/?q=photo.net</a></p>

<p>Here's another interesting article on the subject with the most interesting info lower down on the page regarding what pinterest can do with pinned content.</p>

<p><a href="http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations">http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations</a></p>

<p><a href="http://photographylife.com/pinterest-copyright-infringement-made-cool">http://photographylife.com/pinterest-copyright-infringement-made-cool</a></p>

[carashilaire]

<p>Traffic from Pinterest is around 4-6,000 clicks per month. Not huge, but definitely some interest. I think fashion and recipes are probably more popular on Pinterest in general, but some people do like to pin photos they love as well.<br>

This is definitely a larger convo than just photo.net, and an interesting one, since virtually everything out there is available to be pinned and it does raise copyright questions for sure as a whole regarding the Pinterest business model. As I mentioned, even without the "pin it" button, someone can easily paste the image URL into Pinterest and make a pin anyway. <br>

Lex - looking into why images are being referred to the random image generator -- if they are images we've pinned to the photo.net Pinterest page.</p>

[Stock-Photos]

<p>I appreciate your feedback Cara and I'm not trying to imply that photo.net has bad intentions with the pin-it button. I realize it's on lots of sites.</p>

[carashilaire]

<p>I didn't think that at all - not to worry. I'm guessing a lot of people on photo.net don't use Pinterest and I wanted to explain that anything online--on or off photo.net--is pinnable to those that haven't used the site or don't understand it.</p>

<p>For me personally, it just really raises some interesting questions about the Pinterest business model. </p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>I browsed through the search results and while many of them seem to be from photo.net's account. Others, such as those posted by Cheryl Wilgren only refer to a photo.net's link on the history of photography. In other words, just a tag and no image grab.</p>

<p>The majority of images seem to be owner-pinned presumably to promote themselves - Mike Marcotte's entire portfolio pinned by Jane Marcotte, Gaetan Chevalier pinned most of his photos - so if someone had a couple of thousand images in their portfolio here, and pinned them all on Pinterest, it would appear as a gross infringement if you only looked at the number of images without checking names. </p>

<p>I browsed until my index finger got sore from scrolling but the pictures became a blur long before that. Not to diminish the issue of infringement, but I can't see any photo holding broad attention unless it was somehow striking enough to stand out in a sea of pictures everywhere on the Internet, and those search results, long as it is, only represents a tiny fraction of the number of photos on Pinterest.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>The inconsistent results I'm seeing are via the "Black and White" board. Clicking on the sidebar thumbnails brings up the larger view on Pinterest. Then clicking on that larger version sometimes redirects to the original photo.net page on which it's hosted, and other times to the random image generator. Hovering over the photos on Pinterest also shows the inconsistencies.</p>

<p>I'm attaching a screencap illustrating a couple of the specific inconsistencies I noted.</p><div></div>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>I read the debate J.H. linked to, and had already read various articles about whether Pinterest's model amounts to copyright infringement. </p>

<p>For now I don't have any firm opinion on it. I can see how sites like Pinterest could potentially diminish the value of stock photography for photographers whose primary business, or a component thereof, is online display, rather than traditional print publications and/or art books and prints.</p>

<p>I will admit that various discussions and debates like these have prompted me to use discrete watermarks on my photos more often than I used to. And I have deleted many photos from photo.net that I'm hoping to use as a fundraiser for a local hospital. I may re-upload those photos, but this time those particular photos will carry much more prominent watermark/copyright notices. I don't wish to see the potential value of those photos diminished by unauthorized usage, although such usage for these photos would likely be limited to the medical/technical field. Even within that niche, I've seen social media directors for some hospitals and medical groups who appear oblivious to copyrights.</p>

<p>Personally I haven't experienced enough unauthorized use of my photos to be concerned about the issue. But I don't take the types of photos that would readily appeal to most folks who are drawn to conventionally pretty photos, so my situation isn't representative of the concerns others may legitimately have.</p>

[MichaelChang]

<p>As Cara noted, Pinterest is more of a general interest site and I see it as more of an annoyance if anything. </p>

<p>Potentially more threatening is what's on Tumblr which is not easily searchable. Many members are enthusiasts specializing in specific genres reposting pictures they've found from scouring the Internet, so the image quality is generally much higher than Pinterest. Here are a few examples:<br>

<a href="http://ethostheatre.tumblr.com/archive">http://ethostheatre.tumblr.com/archive</a> - general pretty pictures<br>

<a href="http://nudesartistic.tumblr.com/archive">http://nudesartistic.tumblr.com/archive</a> - contains nudity<br>

<a href="http://calvin-klein26.tumblr.com/">http://calvin-klein26.tumblr.com/</a> - high end fashion photography</p>

[bobatkins]

<p>Pinterest's business model is <em>based</em> on copyright violation. While they say users should only pin images they own the copyright on, it's obvious that they make absolutely no attempt to enforce that rule. Sure they will honor DMCA take down notices (since they have no other choice but to do so), but they are banking on the fact that for most people, even if they find the violation, it will simple be too much trouble to keep on filing DMCA complaints every time an image is used without permission.</p>

<p>Pinterest aren't the only site doing this of course. I think we've already lost the battle and posting on the internet is becoming closer to posting an image in the public domain because it's becoming increasingly obvious that it's impractical for anyone to keep track of stolen images and it would be a full time job to file DCMA complaints on each one.</p>

<p>I guess the answer is to embrace it. It you can't beat them, join them. Post stuff everywhere and hope that somebody sees it who might be interested in buying it, or at least following a link and looking at your other work!</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Personally I'm for that Photonet uses all the possibilities available, including Pinterest, for attracting viewers to the site. Up to 6.000 clicks per month is marginal, but still important. I wonder, however, whether any of those clicks have ended up in sales of photos.<br>

For the moment, the business model of Photonet is totally build on attracting viewers and users more than selling photo prints. </p>

 

[Stock-Photos]

<p>Here's a link to another article which I believe was written by a copyright attorney. He makes it very clear, the difference between what Pinterest and the other social networking users and sharing "buttons" do.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.trademarkandcopyrightlawblog.com/2012/03/pinterests-popularity-soars-but-pinteresting-copyright-questions-abound/">http://www.trademarkandcopyrightlawblog.com/2012/03/pinterests-popularity-soars-but-pinteresting-copyright-questions-abound/</a></p>

<p><em><strong>I strongly believe it is not in photo.net's best interest to maintain Pinterest buttons under users images which when clicked, duplicate photo.net members images to the Pinterest servers. It promotes copyright infringement!</strong></em><br>

<em><strong> </strong></em><br>

I understand our images can be "pinned" without the Pin-It button but why promote it? </p>

<p>I turned of my "sharing" buttons just now. Simply because Pinterest buttons do <em>more</em> than share.They duplicate our IP. <br>

Unfortunately, with the sharing buttons off I won't benefit from the from the traffic the other social buttons bring.</p>

<p>On a slightly different note, I caption and keyword my images <em>and folders</em> so they that generate plenty of good traffic for the terms I target.</p>

<p>I don't want and traffic from Pinterest users. Most have no understanding of copyright and likely could care less about it.<br>

<em><strong> </strong></em></p>

[qalam]

ANY photo out on the Web can be copied. In some cases the image can be saved at full resolution. In ALL cases, it can

be saved at low resolution by means of a screen grab. If you do not want your photos to be at risk, do not put them on

line. If that's too extreme, post only very low resolution images (preferably watermarked) too reduce the risk of theft.

 

The electronic world is similar to the real world. If I leave my lawnmower on the front lawn instead of locking it up in the

garden shed, the risk of theft is high. If I'm really concerned, I can put it inside the house. Even then, the risk is not zero.

 

Risk management is an important activity.

[Stock-Photos]

<p>Bob, in the case of the p interest model I certainly hope people do not embrace it.</p>

<p>When I viewed the dozens of my images illeagally pinned, aka copied to pinterest servers, I could see my copyright watermarks still. <em>What's to prevent pinterest from instituting crop tool allowing users to eliminate watermarks or combine images together?</em></p>

<p><strong>People, who have any concern with copyright protection of their images, need to understand the ramifications if Pinterest succeeds with the harboring of widespread copyright infringement (by it's users, who know no better) :-O</strong><br>

<strong> </strong><br>

<strong>They will succeed unless lots of photographers and copyright attorneys take action! (I'm waiting to hear back from a copyright attorney I contacted.)</strong></p>

[carashilaire]

<p>Bob mentioned this, but you definitely can disable the "pin it" button on your own photos from your workspace. If you are in your workspace and scroll down on the right, you'll see "sharing links: enable/disable." Once you disable, the sharing links under your photos go away. That way, each photographer on the site has the choice if they want to have photos pinned or not, since some love it and some don't. It doesn't mean that someone else can't pin (there are two other routes to pin - if someone has the Pinterest function in their toolbar or anyone can copy and paste a URL into Pinterest to create a pin), but would take away one of the three ways to pin. </p>