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What Are You Pinning? You Could Get Sued Using Pinterest

by sbucciarel Banned
17 replies
Interesting article on Pinterest and liability for copyright infringement. Basically, Pinterest puts it all on the users to be copyright compliant and imposes the legal fees on the users should Pinterest get sued.

What are you pinning and repinning? From what I see, the majority of the site is copyrighted photos being used without permission. Some photographers are going to make bank on this eventually.

Pinterest writes:

"YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SITE, APPLICATION, SERVICES AND SITE CONTENT REMAINS WITH YOU."

What's more, Pinterest places all blame and potential legal fees on its users. It writes:

"You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Cold Brew Labs, its officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of or in any way connected with (i) your access to or use of the Site, Application, Services or Site Content, (ii) your Member Content, or (iii) your violation of these Terms."
Lawyer assesses Pinterest's copyright situation
#pinning #pinterest #sued
  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Yes, I posted about this a while ago.

    There are a lot of people trying to jump on Pinterest to abuse it for IM and affiliate marketing and not really understanding the legal problems - some BIG companies have already been pursuing law suits relating to Pinterest.
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    nothing to see here.

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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Andyhenry View Post

      Yes, I ****** about this a while ago.

      There are a lot of people trying to jump on Pinterest to abuse it *** IM and affiliate marketing and not really understanding the legal problems - some BIG companies have already been pursuing law suits relating to Pinterest.
      I haven't heard about pending lawsuits, but if there is, it doesn't surprise me. I expect to see more of it.
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  • Profile picture of the author getano
    It would be a great shame if we can't use Pinterest for IM! In my opinion, it will be the biggest social network in the world.
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  • Profile picture of the author Damien Roche
    How generous of Pinterest! Provide people with a bookmarklet so they can easily add copyrighted material from web pages, use that to generate a mass of content and then place all blame on its loyal members. Ugh! What happened to transparency?
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  • Profile picture of the author szita2000
    After all you can't sue Xerox if someone start to print fake dollar bills on one of their machine...
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by szita2000 View Post

      After all you can't sue Xerox if someone start to print fake dollar bills on one of their machine...
      That could be partly because Xerox and other companies began configuring their color machines so that every copy has a little code embedded in it which identifies the machine that made the copy. Once they know which machine made the copy, they can find out who owns that machine, making it relatively easy for the Secret Service to find the counterfeiter.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    Yeah ... it gets even more interesting. When you pin something, you give Pinterest irrevocable rights to use that image as they see fit ... even if you don't actually have the right to give them that right.

    That's going to be a real legal mess.

    As it stands now, Pinterest has allowed hundreds if not thousands of people to violate Matthew (Oatmeal) Inman's copyright by fraudulently grant Pinterest free reign to do whatever they want with his images. If Inman himself were to pin his comics, Pinterest could sell books, t-shirts, posters, greeting cards (all items Inman himself currently sells) and he wouldn't be owed a dime.

    The scenarios are endless, but they revolve around Pinterest benefiting from content producers' work while perpetually and irrevocably screwing them in the process.
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    Irrevocable Means It's Too Late

    If you, like most people, didn't actually read Pinterest's terms of service and posted images you own onto Pinterest, you're likely too late. While I'm certainly not a lawyer, granting someone irrevocable rights seems to suggest you can't just delete your pins and revoke Pinterest's right to do whatever they please with that image.
    Pinterest’s Quiet Copyright Coup
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  • Profile picture of the author wymetto
    I heard about this company this morning - they staff 16 people but the site is doesnt make any money - I don't get it...
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    • Profile picture of the author Rashell
      What amazes me is the Pinterest "experts" selling WSOs who don't even bother to mention this. They'll take 1/2 of an eBook to show you how to log on with screenshots and ignore the stuff that could really impact business health.

      I just recently read a Pinterest WSO that suggested readers get images from stock photography sites. But according to the TOS of each of the stock sites mentioned users cannot transfer rights when using the images. Site owners, using these images, should be encouraged to add code to protect visitors from unsuspectingly pinning these images. Instead they've been encouraged to add a pin button.

      But alas,

      Rashell
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      • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
        Originally Posted by Rashell View Post

        What amazes me is the Pinterest "experts" selling WSOs who don't even bother to mention this. They'll take 1/2 of an eBook to show you how to log on with screenshots and ignore the stuff that could really impact business health.

        I just recently read a Pinterest WSO that suggested readers get images from stock photography sites. But according to the TOS of each of the stock sites mentioned users cannot transfer rights when using the images. Site owners, using these images, should be encouraged to add code to protect visitors from unsuspectingly pinning these images. Instead they've been encouraged to add a pin button.

        But alas,

        Rashell
        I posted about this before:

        If you want to protect your own images you just need to add the following code to your <head> section of your web pages.

        <meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" />
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        nothing to see here.

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        • Profile picture of the author fluffythewondercat
          Originally Posted by Andyhenry View Post

          I posted about this before:

          If you want to protect your own images you just need to add the following code to your <head> section of your web pages.

          <meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" />
          Assuming they get it directly off your website.

          I find this morning there are a number of my images on Pinterest. Some came from Kaboodle, one came from a blogger who stole it first. None were lifted directly from my site.

          fLufF
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          • Profile picture of the author Rashell
            Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat View Post

            Assuming they get it directly off your website.

            I find this morning there are a number of my images on Pinterest. Some came from Kaboodle, one came from a blogger who stole it first. None were lifted directly from my site.

            fLufF
            --
            That's why I think companies like Digimarc are going to soon come center stage.

            Anywho, each image gets a watermark that can't be seen by the human eye but sticks with the image even if someone tries to alter it. For $99/yr you can track up to 2000 of your images online and get a report of exactly what sites your images are on.

            BTW, Did you hit the "report pin" button on the pin-page and have Pinterest either remove them or redirect them back to your site?

            Rashell
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            • Profile picture of the author fluffythewondercat
              Originally Posted by Rashell View Post

              BTW, Did you hit the "report pin" button on the pin-page and have Pinterest either remove them or redirect them back to your site?
              Not yet, but thanks for the tip, Rashell. And you could be right about Digimarc.

              fLufF
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  • Profile picture of the author Tadresources
    From what I've seen on Pinterest, there is A LOT of copyright infringment going on there. I could definitely see it becoming an issue, especially in areas like the US where there is a reputation for being litigious.
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    Originally Posted by Chris Kent View Post

    Indemnification clauses aren't absolute. They can try to push their liability onto the users but only a court case would prove it right one way or the other.

    I'm sure that Megaupload indemnified itself too but that didn't stop the FBI going across to the other side of the world to nail Kim DotCom.

    Clickbank do something similar. They have an indemnification clause, even though they are the legal sellers.
    I agree with you, there.

    No matter what Pinterest say, as far as I understand the site you are merely "pinning" something, and it's Pinterest who is technically taking the photo you pin and uploading it to their site, technically. Not the user.

    Not to say both the user and Pinterest couldn't be sued, but I see it as different than a site like youtube where you are doing the actual uploading yourself instead of say, giving a link to youtube and their system does the actual uploading for you.

    The whole way Pinterest is set up I see them as taking on a lot of the responsibility. After all, they are benefiting from people "pinning" photos that don't belong to them and giving them such an easy way to do it.

    In fact, I daresay they definitely want people to pin anything and everything, regardless of what their terms say. If everyone followed what their terms say, their site would be far less popular.
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  • Profile picture of the author J Bold
    After reading that article (which I figured out I've already read as somebody posted about it on warrior forum already) I've come to the conclusion that Pinterest needs to revamp their whole system and stick to thumbnails.

    In the article, a photographer sued a search engine for presenting thumbnails, instead of whole images, of that photographer's work. The court found in favor the search engine, as it used thumbnails, and not the whole image.

    I think if Pinterest wants to continue to be a viable website, that's the way they need to go. I think they will get tired of the lawsuits that are coming.

    In my personal opinion, if I were a photographer and I put photos on my own website and encouraged people to pin them on pinterest, I wouldn't care about sueing Pinterest as I would be getting a lot of traffic and interest in my work than if my work hadn't been pinned. I would probably have a greater chance of making more money out of my work , too. But that's just a personal preference.

    Will be interesting what happens to Pinterest in the future.
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