I am seriously addicted to Pinterest. I am a natural hoarder, and so I love collecting things that take up no physical space. I love pinning photographic inspiration, crafty ideas, recipes and inspiration for future home renovations and decoration. I found the Star Wars family stickers that so delight me via Pinterest. I’ve got an amazing collection of Photoshop tutorials and ideas to furnish the photography studio I’d like to build in the garage. I truly love surfing and collecting pins on Pinterest.
And yet, as a photographer, I feel conflicted about Pinterest. I had mixed feelings when I saw Lucas’s “puddle jumper” popping up on the site (and the worst part was that the attribution, when it appeared, was usually back to the I Heart Faces site where I’d entered it in one of their competitions before I started licensing it through Getty.) Some photographers are happy to share their work on Pinterest, some are probably ambivalent like me, and some consider it an egregious copyright infringement. I’m happy that people like my pictures, and I share them because I love showing them to you — but when they wander away and become separated from me, from my little “property” here and on Flickr and Facebook, that makes me increasingly anxious.
As Pinterest has started to set the Internet on fire (it’s now getting more than one billion monthly page views, with 10 million registered users) there have been more articles written about how ethical the business model could be that encourages people to share without explicit (or any) permission. Responding to the backlash, Pinterest recently offered a bit of code that website owners can put on their sites to prevent pinning, and Flickr just announced that it has disabled the ability to pin Flickr images for which the user has not explicitly enabled sharing.
What really got me wondering about whether I want to continue to participate as a pinner, though, was this article and a few similar opinions I’ve read about copyright infringement. The author of the blog post (long, but definitely worth reading), who is a lawyer and was inspired to look into the legal aspect of Pinterest’s Terms of Service from a copyright perspective, said:
From a legal perspective, my concern was for my own potential liability. From an artist’s perspective, my concern was that I was arguably engaging in activity that is morally, ethically and professionally wrong. [...] Even in light of all of the above, what finally sealed the deal for me as I tried desperately to talk myself out of deleting my gorgeous inspiration boards, was when I thought of some of the photographers whose work I had pinned from other websites. Would they want me posting their images? My initial response is probably the same as most of yours: “why not? I’m giving them credit and it’s only creating more exposure for them and I LOVE when people pin my stuff!” But then I realized, I was unilaterally making the decision FOR that other photographer. And I thought back to the thread on Facebook where the photographers were complaining about clients posting photos without their consent and I realized this rationale is no different than what those clients argue: “why can’t I post them – it’s just more exposure for you.” Bottom line is that it is not my decision to make. Not legally and not ethically.
Aside from the ethical question, the author of the blog post also opines that you as a pinner could be held legally liable for any damages arising from copyright infringement:
[I]f some photographer out there decides that he or she does not want you using that photogs images as “inspiration” or otherwise and decides to sue you and Pinterest over your use of that photog’s images, you will have to hire a lawyer for yourself and YOU will have to hire a lawyer for Pinterest and fund the costs of defending both of you in court. Not only that, but if a court finds that you have, in fact, violated copyright laws, you will pay all damages assessed against you and all damages assessed against Pinterest. OUCH. Oh, but it gets better. Pinterest reserves the right to prosecute you for violations. Basically, Pinterest has its keester covered and have shifted all of the risk to you. Smart of them, actually since the courts are still deciding whether the site owner or the user should be ultimately responsible. Rather than wait for the decision, they have contractually made you the responsible one. And you agreed.
Now I’m no lawyer, but the argument against copyright infringement speaks to me. After seven years of chasing down blog scrapers, and almost as long keeping a watchful eye out for unwarranted use of my photographs, the idea of participating in – of gleefully perpetuating — that kind of infringement is somewhere between distasteful and downright disgusting.
It’s true that some site owners clearly encourage sharing by the use of a “pin this” button, and I’ve seen other arguments that *any* kind of social share button pretty much obliviates the copyright argument (which kind of gives me pause, as that’s certainly not my intention on my own site here – but my poor brain can only handle so many of these arguments at a time!) But do I have the patience to pop over to the originating site of each pin to see if the original creator has indicated that the material is available for sharing? I’m not sure. And you can only click back to the source material about half the time.
I’ve paused my obsessive pinning until I can get this sorted out for my own conscience, if nothing else. I’m flattered when people like my work, in words or in pictures, enough to share. And I love Pinterest as a way to share and collect interesting bookmarks on the Web. But do I have the right to pin someone’s work who feels like I’m violating their copyright in doing so? Doesn’t that put me on the same level as people who think that just because something is posted online it makes it fair game to take and use without permission? A few times I’ve wanted to blog things I’ve found on Pinterest but hesitated for exactly these copyright questions – just because I found it on Pinterest doesn’t mean I can use the images there freely. It is a colossally slippery slope. (Edited to add: And here’s yet another concern, this one finding in the Terms of Use that Pinterest claims the right to SELL any content uploaded to it!!!)
My friend Sue, the erstwhile Mad Hatter Mommy, tweeted a list of ten reasons she’s not a Pinterest fan last night, and I found myself laughing and nodding appreciatively at her criticisms, including: 1. Home decor is not all white, light, airy and devoid of brown. and 3. Life cannot be lived according to aphorism no matter how many aphorisms one collects. and 5. Pinterest lets people feel entitled about web use–like taking home all the shells from the beach. and 9. Don’t even get me started on the appropriation & deprofessionalization of the word “curate.” Clearly, Sue has been perusing my pinboards! 
What do you think? Are you a Pinterest fan? Does this make you think twice about using Pinterest?
