In All This Talk Of Pinterest And Copyright, The Fact That It's Driving Massive Traffic Seems Important
from the and-they-want-to-cut-this-off dept
We already wrote about the pointless copyright freakout that some are having about Pinterest -- and since then, not a day has gone by without someone pointing us to yet another hysterical article by someone about how Pinterest is some copyright horror show. Lately there have been a bunch of... silly... stories about the specifics of Pinterest's terms of service. However, in all of this debate, one rather important point seems to have been left out of most of the discussions: Pinterest drives a ton of traffic back to original sources.For all the concerns about how Pinterest is infringing on various sites and copyright holders, the reality appears to be that it drives so much traffic that it's difficult to understand why people are complaining:
Beginning this summer, Pinterest became the top social referrer for marthastewartweddings.com and marthastewart.com, sending more traffic to both properties than Facebook and Twitter combined. Pinterest is on track to become the second highest traffic driver (after Google) to Cooking Light‘s website, up 6,000% from just six months ago. The social bookmarking site already drives three times the amount of traffic to Cooking Light compared to Facebook.In other words, as we've seen time and time again, it appears that, for those who are willing to embrace the new technology and service (rather than freak out) there are tons of opportunities. Unfortunately history tells us that more will continue to freak out before they realize this.
Elsewhere, Pinterest is the fourth largest source of traffic for Country Living, up 150% from August to the end of January, and accounts for 3% of all referrals. It was the ninth largest traffic source for both Elle Decor and House Beautiful last month, both of which have seen triple-digit percentage increases in referrals over the last six months, and was among the top 10 referral sites for Self magazine.
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Shut the front door!
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Re: Shut the front door!
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If you freak out about that, you are a dinosaur and deserve to go extinct.
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Your joking right? Call me when you've actually made something, so I can go and steal your work. Don't be so ducking fumb! Nitwit
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Pinterest is more in line of showcasing, in that it generates interest for the original artist at no loss to them. Traffic isn't just a shoutout, it is people walking into the store. Unless your business model is based around charging people for the right to find out what you're selling there's not much of an issue here.
And yes, mathematically speaking, if Walmart could increase sales by letting the occasional shoplifter through they'd be idiots to not let the occasional shoplifter through. Since having images posted doesn't reduce your inventory the choice should be even easier for you.
I haven't made anything artsy; I'm just not that kind of creative. I have, however, seen a TV show's producer mention that anyone interested in it can find it on YouTube. Does that count?
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The person who pins my image does so to one of their boards, but at the same time they are explicitly giving Pinterest the right to SELL that image per the TOS of Pinterest.
This IS a loss to me. How do you see that it's not?
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The person who pins your work can't give Pinterest the right to sell your work any more than I can sell your house. That it's in the TOS doesn't change that. If Pinterest ever tries to push that they will lose, and rightly so.
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Pinterest�s terms state that �you� the user must have the rights to publish / upload content to their site and that you transfer rights to Pinterest. They didn�t include the section regarding the use / sale of an image in their TOS just for the sake of adding it. One could safely assume that there ARE intentions by Pinterest to take advantage of that clause.
You assume that Pinterest wouldn�t ever take advantage of that clause because of the legal ramifications; however, it also states that if any legal action is taken because of content you pin, you are not only financially and legally responsible for yourself, but also for Pinterest. So no, they would not be held liable for selling / using / etc. an image only the user would be.
All that aside, you still assume that �Pinterest is the greatest marketing and I should be oh so grateful that my work is being pinned on the site.� No, that�s BS. I have painstakingly spent hours upon hours to design MY website displaying my work in a very specific way. People who are serious about hiring me will find me based on how and where I decide to market. There are crapload of boards that people make of �images to copy.� No no, don�t credit me, don�t hire me, here just take my image, copy it, and do it yourself!
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Pinterest�s terms state that �you� the user must have the rights to publish / upload content to their site and that you transfer rights to Pinterest. They didn�t include the section regarding the use / sale of an image in their TOS just for the sake of adding it. One could safely assume that there ARE intentions by Pinterest to take advantage of that clause.
You assume that Pinterest wouldn�t ever take advantage of that clause because of the legal ramifications; however, it also states that if any legal action is taken because of content you pin, you are not only financially and legally responsible for yourself, but also for Pinterest. So no, they would not be held liable for selling / using / etc. an image only the user would be.
All that aside, you still assume that �Pinterest is the greatest marketing and I should be oh so grateful that my work is being pinned on the site.� No, that�s BS. I have painstakingly spent hours upon hours to design MY website displaying my work in a very specific way. People who are serious about hiring me will find me based on how and where I decide to market. There are crapload of boards that people make of �images to copy.� No no, don�t credit me, don�t hire me, here just take my image, copy it, and do it yourself!
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Re: :)
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Perhaps Pinterest set up its business model all wrong. They should have advertised themselves as traffic drivers and said something like "Pay me $100,000 a year and I will drive traffic to your site." If you charge the gatekeepers enough, they will be your best friend and defend what you are doing to the death.
The problem with Pinterest is that they are doing it for free, and too many people believe that when something is free it has no value.
Pinterest is also contending with small-minded people who assume everything is a zero-sum game. They believe that if Pinterest is making money then they must be loosing money somehow. A lot of small-minded business people just cannot grasp the concept of a game where everybody wins. Frankly, the only way to lose in the Pinterest game is to not play.
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The problem with Pinterest is that they are doing it for free, and too many people believe that when something is free it is 'stealing' something from someone else.
FTFY ;)
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rftfy
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It was observed that if you are selling something that is bad enough that you'd expect it to be returned at too high of a rate, one way to deal with it is dramatically overcharge for the product. It will reduce the return rate.
The idea is that people tend to think that the price of something is an indicator of its quality. Also, if someone pays enough for something that it hurts, they will think positively of it and even extoll its virtues even if it sucks. Once they can't escape how much it sucks, they're likely not to return it, but to just stick it in a closet or something and pretend the whole thing never happened. Nobody likes to admit to others that they've been ripped off.
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Linkbacks?
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QUOTE
What if I don't want images from my site to be pinned?
We have a small piece of code you can add to the head of any page on your site:
When a user tries to pin from your site, they will see this message:
"This site doesn't allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!"
/QUOTE
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Deja Vu
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No, that isn't important, that is called "justification after the fact".
Nice try, but fail. Business model will expire in 3 2 1
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For sites that like Pinterest as a traffic driver, give them an opt-in meta, rather than the current invalid, after the fact, opt-out.
Assuming that sites by default want their content lifted is both wrong and illegal.
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You'd think...
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I happened to see one of my online photos on the site that was converted to line art and was being sold as framed, poster sized prints for a hefty sum. Of course, no credit. Thing is, photography is a hobby, and I have uploaded photos to free sites specifically so then can be used without any restrictions whatsoever, including credit.
As I saw it I had two choices. Leave photos on my closet shelf to gather dust, or simply put them online where others might take an interest and put them to good use. I am glad I chose to follow the latter course because of the satisfaction I get when I go into a large, national retail store and see my photos being used.
I look at it this way. There is nothing to keep me from getting off my duff and trying to make some $$$ myself. The fact I choose not to do so is my problem, and not that of their users.
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On the other hand, I don't see any need for legislation to compel the kind of behaviour I think is polite. Because... y'know, that'd be really dickish.
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The issue is it's TOS in which it says that it has the right to SELL the works of artists that 3rd parties have linked to.
http://artists-bill-of-rights.org/news/campaign-news/pinterest-%11-our-view-of-this-project/
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The users that "sign" the TOS im most cases have no ownership rights at all. Fortunately, this also by law prevents them from transferring anything. Pinterest will still be in violation.
Just like I cannot sign a piece of paper that transfers rights to your house to someone else. Only the current owner can do that.
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Not a problem for Pintrest..
http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-copyright-issues-lawyer-2012-2
"Basically, if a photographer sues you for pinning an image illegally on Pinterest, the user must not only pay for his or her lawyer, they must also pay for Pinterest's lawyer. In addition, the defendant must pay all charges against him or herself, along with all of Pinterest's charges."
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Re: Not a problem for Pintrest..
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Unfortunately, the courts have always held that no 3rd party has the legal right to substitute their opinion on how a work is to be promoted (or not) for that of a copyright holder.
If the site has a "pin it" button or an appropriate Creative Commons license that allows sharing, or a disclaimer releasing it to the public domain, or it's already in the public domain, then it's safe to pin. Otherwise, it's a potential copyright infringement, no different from posting your favorite MP3 or DVD rip. The only real difference is that most of the copyright holders being infringed upon have neither the money nor the will to sue (and yes a lot of them are going to be happy at the increased exposure). However, it's a lottery and I expect it won't be long now unti we start having losers in the pinterest lottery; I know I won't be one of them.
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Have you looked at the investor list for Pinterest? No way they went into it without expecting profits to show up soon. Plus, the Pinterest blog also describe how they will start driving revenue. Straight off the content the other sites paid good money or time to create.
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In addition to doing the heavy lifting of taking images for their users, they have also based their whole business model, their TOS, and coming advertising on the fact that their users will lift images from other sites.
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Many images pinned are pinned from 3rd party sources and DO NOT link back to the original. Just take a look and see how many are linked to google or tumblr.
So now someone else gets to decide for me if my work is going to get shared and I won't get the proper credit. Yep, that's fair.
Further - if I take my image down, but someone has pinned it prior to my removal, Pinterest keeps a copy of my image on their servers.
Here's this biggest issue I have though: the person who pins my image does so to one of their boards, but at the same time they are explicitly giving Pinterest the right to SELL that image per the TOS of Pinterest. How is this not an issue that I should be concerned with?
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User of Pintrest
Also most of the people who complain about pintrest is because they are not "Popular Pins". Screw the fact that pintrest is a data gold mine for what women(or rather 89% of active users) are interested in and want. Not only is it free advertising, it is showing you what these people want. If you are not smart enough to understand that, then you business is doomed anyway as you are out of touch with users.
Have a new product? Pin it to your own board, and hope other people like it. If they do they will repin it. For example a certain U.K. company sells a popular sweater. It has 9k repins. This is a single color. A different color has 10k repins. This sweater now goes easily for around 70 us dollars on ebay. Why the company does not continue to make the sweater I have no idea. It is very inefficient to have 16k people WANT a sweater and not make it any more. When was the last time you saw any group want 19k of any piece of clothing? Especially a prime group who are most likely to buy?
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Re: User of Pintrest
So you are Business Unsavy if you thing that block pintrest is going to help you at all.
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Forgotten?
It is the fact that Pinterest automatically assumes that everyone wants them to offload their content thats a problem. Having a site opt-out through a meta-tag is the exact reverse of actual law, which by default gives the image producers the rights to make decisions on their own work.
So, if Pinterest is of such great value, then give sites an opt-in functionality, rather than an opt-out.
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surprised?
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Stupid People Shouldn't Breed!
You people make me fucking sick. I await the day when pinterest steal's something from me, and I will sue their ass off.
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"And yes, mathematically speaking, if Walmart could increase sales by letting the occasional shoplifter through they'd be idiots to not let the occasional shoplifter through."
Could you please post your home address and bank account passwords? "Mathematically speaking" I'm going to "increase" you.
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And, again, unless what you're selling is the ability to view your images on a computer screen, this is less shoplifting and more taking pictures of their products and posting those pictures around town.
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Again
Funny, how plugging in "movies" or "music" for "photos" would make most people realize how what they are doing is illegal.
And the "free traffic" argument is also irrelevant. You assume that "free traffic" is the goal of everyone on the planet. It might be for "Martha Stewart" who likely owns the copyright to all the content they are pinning up there, so that is the choice they have made. It might not be, for the rest of the world of individual artists who are not concerned about being Pinterest fodder for housewives, or having their work embedded (free of charge!) from the Pinterest servers on any blog anyone wishes to put it on, using the code generator right there on the Pinterest page.
And, pssssstttt, "free traffic", again, does not absolve you from the charges of infringment. 1% increase or 400%. It should be up to the artist if they want to do this. It should be "opt in".
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Illegal doesn't mean wrong, and neither illegal nor wrong means that something isn't smart to allow. I'm not saying that this isn't copyright infringement, I'm saying that that doesn't make it harmful. I'm saying that it would be beneficial to the artist to allow their work to be showcased, whether by opting in or not opting out, assuming that their objective is either to have more people enjoy their work or to make money off of it. Wrong and illegal have nothing to do with it. Though if they keep the opt-out approach a claims system would be good, because not linking back to the original is both wrong and harmful.
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It's absolutely not ridiculous. The stock photo industry brings in billions of dollars a year, in part, because people need to view images on computers. News articles. Business blogs. Advertising "brochures". etc. Just because you think that just because you don't sit around watching an image slideshow, that the content has no value, doesn't mean that everyone's creations are a free for all for anyone who feels the need to steal.
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Why does "casual" make it somehow ok? Is it ok for me to casually put "Star Wars" on my blog?
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Not everything people do is something they will or should have to pay to do. Saying that you think a picture is nice is one of those things you shouldn't have to pay for. Nothing you've said has convinced me that it is in any way reasonable for anyone to expect to be paid for that, and I get the feeling that neither of us thinks close enough to the other to convince them that we're right, since you keep using that word "legal" like it means something besides "helps avoid fines". The next bit is just an elaboration on my view, more for if you're curious than anything.
The whole movie is several hours long. You can't just glance at a movie and say "huh, that is a pretty good movie". But clips of a lightsaber fight, the opening of the Imperial March, or a picture of Leia in her bronze bikini are fine. Yes, I define a casual use by the amount of time a user can be expected to be exposed to it. A couple hours can never be just casual, since it requires a certain amount of commitment to sit through. And, for things less immediately recognizable than Star Wars, it's also good to say what the thing's from. I know it doesn't affect the legality, but it does affect how reasonable the action is, a property entirely divorced from the law.
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I'm not willing to pay anything for it. Which is why the host is providing the service while putting advertisements on the side to make some money. That's their choice. It's not an appropriate analogy. You taking my work for your benefit without my permission or compensation is not at all the same.
"Saying that you think a picture is nice is one of those things you shouldn't have to pay for."
Oh, you can say it all day long. You just can't copy it for free and use it on a blog that promotes your business.
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People are complaining because
Traffic out weighs the copyright of others? Wait until someone with deep pockets steps up and files a trademark claim and wants damages.
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You don't get it
There is a huge difference between a photo of a product and the product itself.
While it is true that some photographers 'pin' their own work (possibly unaware that they grant the right to Pinterest to sell it without giving them a penny back), for most photographers selling their own work is the only way to earn an income and letting Pinterest sell their work without so much as a decent credit is a price too high to pay, even if it may drive traffic.
There are two problems:
With repinning, the original source is quickly lost (if it was there in the first place!), and only few people give appropriate credit in the first place. This automatically means that even for photographers who share (some of) their work with a Creative Commons license (as I do with some of my work!), this does not comply with the license conditions.
It gets worse: Pinterest grabs the largest copy of the work they can find and stores it on their own servers after stripping out all meta data that would identify the rights holder. Pinterest may say they respect copyright, but this clearly shows they don't - if they then go on and sell this (as they claim the right to do) they have already made sure they cannot even credit the original artist. They've thrown away the information to be able to do so.
This is why - even though I do share some of my work (eventually all) with a Creative Commons license I am totally opposed Pinterest grabbing my work: the way they operate, they cannot comply with the license conditions - let alone for work that isn't licensed so liberally yet.
I don't want their traffic because I don't want them to violate my rights.
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Re: You don't get it
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We, the content creators, the artists, the musicians, the writers, the photographers, own the copyright.
Pinterest twisted the sentiments, to appease us, the DMCA is in place and the site has no way to vet each pin or uploaded work and does not check, because the user agreement puts the onus on the users and the content creator to issue a DMCA take down.
The issue, seems to be, contributory copyright infringement.
Some cite youtube as searching out copyrighted materials, which the site does, because the content creators have registered their works with a service that youtube uses.
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copyright theft
However there is a means to stop all of this that works.
Find the images that have been stolen and posted.
Inform the infringer. Then pinterest.
Inform pinterest AND THOSE WHO ADVERTISE they are after being informed of the infringement liable for fees, location and time fees and infringement fees. For having been informed they are then involved as part of that infringement.
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