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An interesting take on the Pinterest copyright woes?

by Rashell
7 replies
While some worry about copyright infringement the magazine, House Beautiful, has opted to allow it's readers to pin its content. Using the Digimarc technology it has in essence added a "pin it" button to its print magazine pages.

Their reasoning...

"We know our readers are already taking pictures of pages from our magazine and pinning them on Pinterest," said Newell Turner, editor-in-chief of House Beautiful. "Digimarc's Print-to-Pin solution is an excellent way for our readers now to share high-quality images from select editorial whenever and wherever they are inspired. We have been using Digimarc Discover in our magazine for nearly a year now, and we see this new Print-to-Pin experience as an important advancement toward further deepening engagement with our readers."
So what is it?

The Digimarc Print-to-Pin solution enables magazines, advertisers, retailers and others to drive Pinterest enthusiasts from printed materials to their corporate Pinterest sites without marring the creative aesthetics of the materials with QR codes or Microsoft Tags.
You can read the full article:

Digimarc Empowers House Beautiful's Launch of World's First "Pinterest-Enabled" Print Magazine

By the way, if you're not a big Pinterest fan you can still use the Digimarc Discover technology to "link" a print image to a fan page or any url.

Rashell
#copyright #digimarc discover #engagement #interesting #pinterest #qr codes #woes
  • Profile picture of the author andreasup
    Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

    In essence House Beautiful is taking the approach of if you can't beat em, join em. So I guess that is there way of giving passive permission to their readers to bypass any copyright issues?

    Seems like an interesting way to approach the copyright challenge.
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  • Profile picture of the author NoodlyDoodly
    This "way to approach the copyright challenge" is unlikely to work for most people.

    Creators Against Pinterest: The Image Is The Product

    I would in fact predict the disappearance, within a 5 year time span, of small-scale quality content providers from the internet, who will be forced to compete against their own content repeatedly posted on Pinterest. That would be a pity.
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  • Profile picture of the author webcosmo
    This would be a tough fight, I must say the owners of creative materials probably gonna have an edge over this; mainly because many of them prohibits using their intellectual material in any way.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rashell
      Originally Posted by andreasup View Post

      Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

      In essence House Beautiful is taking the approach of if you can't beat em, join em. So I guess that is there way of giving passive permission to their readers to bypass any copyright issues?

      Seems like an interesting way to approach the copyright challenge.
      Well actually HB only allows readers to "pin" certain
      pieces of content. So I see it as the beginning
      processes of training the masses on the rights of the
      copyright holder.

      Originally Posted by NoodlyDoodly View Post

      This "way to approach the copyright challenge" is unlikely to work for most people.

      Creators Against Pinterest: The Image Is The Product

      I would in fact predict the disappearance, within a 5 year time span, of small-scale quality content providers from the internet, who will be forced to compete against their own content repeatedly posted on Pinterest. That would be a pity.
      That was an interesting read. Not just the article
      itself but the blog as a whole.

      The problem, as I see it, is
      not Pinterest per se...

      but the overall attitude of our free content world. As
      you call them, small-scale quality content providers
      have been offering their content free of charge for
      years. Creating the "free-for-all" mentality we see
      now. Readers treat a blog post like a brochure tossed
      on a table at the dentist's office.

      Next, these same small-scale quality content providers
      started adding social share buttons. Hoping more people
      would come back to their site, they deepened the idea
      that content is not only free but should be freely shared.

      So now here we are, pissed at Pinterest because we
      trained readers to disregard the worth of our content.

      What HB did that was
      pretty smart...

      HB wisely used this "free-for-all" social promotion
      mentality in a manner similar to "ad placements".

      You've seen those full page ad spreads made to
      look like editorial content within magazines. The
      advertorials are marked "paid advertisement" at
      the top.

      Similar to the advertorials model, HB takes some of
      its content and enlists its readers to advertise samples
      of the HB pay-for-content magazine. Only they don't
      have to pay anyone (not even Pinterest).

      Readers still get their pin-fix satisfied. And lawsuits
      can still proceed for content without proper
      "print-to-pin" authorization.

      Small-scale quality content providers could do the
      same. Because, until the masses realize content is
      not free-for-all they'll continue to treat it as if it were.
      Clever adjustments can help "retrain".


      Still, Pinterest does need an
      attitude adjustment...

      On another note, Pinterest, does need a serious law
      suit slapped on it. In particular for the difficult
      measures they've put in place for finding and removing
      all instances of a single copyright image. Copyright
      owners shouldn't have to report 4+ pin identities to
      have their content removed. That's BS.

      Your Thoughts?

      Rashell
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      • Profile picture of the author NoodlyDoodly
        I am in agreement with you, Rashell.

        Small-scale quality content providers could do the same.
        And they will. Free content will become less profitable and have to be substituted by pay-for content whenever possible. Disregard for copyright is sure to alter the face of the internet permanently - not in a way the pinners are going to like, down the road.

        Any lawsuit against Pinterest requires a great deal of preparation and the expertise of a fairly large team of lawyers. A lot of decisions need to be made. Who will be sued? What will the courts be asked to legislate upon? How to best target the lawsuit to make case law? There are no lawsuits out yet, but that's not because there are no plaintiffs or attorneys working on it.

        Lawsuits against pinners infringing on registered works are the easy-money option. Pinners have no defense, they're just going to have to pay up - and pay Pinterest's lawyers. I'd bet my best top hat that one day soon, several firms will "coincidentally" drop a few hundred lawsuits against pinners at once. SURPRISE
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  • Profile picture of the author GMT
    I don't really see the difference between what pinterest does and google/bing image cache does, in terms of copyright issues. If anything content providers should be embracing pinterest and pinterest should promote the image source more to help the providers that make their site continue to grow. Copyright trolls like RIAA and MPAA have shown how not to do things, so I think everyone should learn from their mistakes and do it right. Because to be perfectly honest you could have the best content in the world but if it's on some small unknown site there's a chance most will never find it, at least with a big focal point(pinterest) it can be exposed to masses much more efficiently.
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    • Profile picture of the author NoodlyDoodly
      I don't really see the difference between what pinterest does and google/bing image cache does, in terms of copyright issues.
      The difference is thumbnails vs. full-size images.

      One is a place where people search for images, the other where others consume images for viewing.

      If anything content providers should be embracing pinterest and pinterest should promote the image source more to help the providers that make their site continue to grow.
      That depends on your website. In most cases, webmasters report scant Pinterest referrals relative to the scope of infringement on their images.

      Some people with recipe sites have reported good results.

      Pinterest's goal is not to promote the image source. Most of the links associated with a pin or an embed are self-serving Pinterest-bound links. They're making sure they're grabbing most of the PR generated, in addition to grabbing the work itself.

      Not everyone has an obscure website that will be thrilled with 7 extra visitors a month.

      Some have long-standing, successful websites with organic search traffic and faithful followers - having their content ripped by pinners is a lose-lose.

      For many, Pinterest is a negative in terms of "promotion."
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