Keep Pinning
Yesterday I read an article – from someone whose work I admire – that was adamantly against Pinterest. I read her post, then the articles she linked to and Pinterest’s Terms of Use. Then I saw several tweets linking to “Why I tearfully deleted my Pinterest inspiration boards” by Kirsten of DDK Portraits, who happens to also be a lawyer. Uh oh.
I was worried for a little bit until I remembered why I started putting my work online in the first place. I do it for people to see, hopefully enjoy or at least find useful, and if I’m lucky enough they’ll share it within their own little network or community. Over the last few months Pinterest has referred four times as much traffic to my website than any other. That’s a whole lot of people that wouldn’t have seen my work otherwise. I understand the concern, especially from photographers. Pinterest’s Terms of Use are definitely sketchy. I might be eating my words one day, but for now I trust Pinterest – they haven’t done anything wrong as far as I can tell. And as an artist, I welcome you to pin my work – I would think that a lot of other artists feel the same way.
If you don’t want your images shared, Pinterest has made it easy to disable pinning from your site by adding meta name="pinterest" content="nopin" to your header. You can also go into Flickr and turn off sharing easily.
Most importantly – before I repin I always click through to learn more about an artist, find more information and make sure it’s linked correctly – what about you?
When done right, with the proper source link, Pinterest is an amazing tool and sharing platform. I’ve found great tutorials, discovered new artists and photographers and your pins keep me constantly inspired.
Some interesting reading on the subject:
- Pinterest, Inspiration, Copying and the Whole Ethics Thing on Craftypod
- Prying Control from Your Cold, Cramped Hands by Kim Werker
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This is a great post. Lately I’ve been reading a lot of posts about the negatives of Pinterest and pins. While I’m not an artist, I can see Pinterest as being a great way to market your goods. Perhaps better education on proper pinning ettequite would help ease other’s minds? Maybe even have Pinterest develop a way that original pinners are allowed to make a reference tag back to the original source that can’t be removed when repinned?
Regardless, I’m happy to see an artist embracing Pinterest for what it is, and recognizing the risk with any online media.
Cheers!
Pinterest could definitely work on that part of it, yes. And I’m sure they will, like Tumblr has now. I’m all for Pinterest Etiquette and permalinks, please! Thanks so much for the support and comment. :)
Totally agree! I don’t get why they would be upset over it. It’s not like pinners are claiming the images as their own and they are usually linked back to the sourse. I am also a designer and I love it when my work gets pinned, afterall it is free advertising!
Thanks for the comment. And yes, exactly!
I love Pinterest.
For me, it is a way of visually bookmarking sites and ideas. I have found my mind and creativity expand so much in just the few short weeks I have been using it! Whenever I can, I hunt down the originating site. I often comment on a pin with the correct link, when it is one of those situations where they linked the site, not the correct page scenarios.
I have to say that those who are intending to infringe on someone else’s rights — they will do that anyway, with or without Pinterest. A simple screen print or capture would suit them just fine.
Honestly, if you are pinning publicly one would assume honorable intentions, don’t you think?
RE: the “DYI” issue … I think that a lot of people do that because they are inspired by something and want to use the image as a point to start from. Once again, they could still steal an idea, whether pinning or not.
I think that the biggest thing is that some people don’t realize the impact their behavior might have on the artist affected. Calmly letting someone know, and if appropriate, asking them to remove the pin or change the way an image is pinned should do the trick.
Maybe we artists should be a bit more diligent know about putting copyright on an image, via a watermark of some sort.
I hope the naysayers don;t have their way with Pinterest. The potential for good that it has for as us is so wonderful.
TOTALLY agree, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Thanks, Amanda :)
A similar situation came up for me the other day, too, wherein two people who are ‘big’ in the teensy niche obsession I inhabit came out against Pinterest. I don’t really understand the objections. It seems obvious to me that once you put stuff online you lose any claim to it – people are going to do absolutely whatever they want with it. Unless you use watermarks, etc, it’s out of your hands. I mean, you can use meta tags and all, but persistent people can download and then re-upload or use print screen or whatever… kinda silly to worry about this stuff. “Property” rights are changing just as rapidly as our sense of privacy and the way we interact. It’s all in a state of flux. It’s a time of great change and it’s pretty bitchen.
I agree, Nancy! Very bitchin’ :)
I expect most people will respect an artists’ work and copyrights online, but at the same time you’re right. Once it’s up there’s no way to stop people from stealing – and unfortunately, a few bad apples could ruin it for all of us. I’ve had a few issues with this though, and like Karla said above… calmly letting someone know that something is inappropriate usually works. I ran into this very issue the other day and got an apology and credit within an hour. I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and sincerely think folks just don’t think what they’re doing is wrong a majority of the time.
Thanks for the comment Nancy, appreciate you sharing your thoughts. :)
As much as I love pinterest, the problem isn’t pinning. If I pin your work from your site, that’s great. The problem starts when, for example, I posted your work on my site (having asked you for permission), and then someone likes it, and pins it from my site. That means, you get no credit for your work, and people won’t always be able to know where the work originated, because, for example, it could be posted on a Japanese site, and they won’t be able to read your name. And then there are google search results pinned and tumblr posts, and there are great art works there, and I have absolutely no way of knowing who made them. That’s a pity, and that’s a huge problem.
I totally agree, that drives me crazy! It’s been great all the articles and images pinned that promote using the correct permalink back to the artist. If I see something on an ‘aggregate’ blog I always follow the links back to the original artist. Hopefully Pinterest will find a solution that makes that the only way to pin something. Until then, we need to check when we repin, leave comments with the permalink when things are pinned incorrectly and always always link to the permalink! :)
Thanks for the comment and for sharing your thoughts!
It’s funny that you should post this since I just discovered your site via Pinterest. I’m looking forward to carving out some time to look all over your site. For now I’ll pin something so that I can find it again.
Wonderful, thank you!! :)
LOVE YOUR WORK AND SITE first off and so glad that I just found you by way of Pinterest.
I just hopped over and read the lady’s post about Pinterest and why she’s against it and I have to say my initial reaction is how her ego has seemed to get the best of her. With only 149 people following her blog, it almost seems as if Pinning would be something she needs at this point. I also saw where she was offended someone said on their own blog that they liked her work and linked to her page. I guess I just can’t comprehend it. If you want to get noticed and become well known you have to be willing to network any way you can get it.
Thank you, I have a bit of a hard time understanding it too! She’s not really arguing whether or not Pinterest is good for marketing though. Just that taking an image off her site and placing it on another one without permission is copyright infringement. Pinterest isn’t the first to do this at all, it’s been happening for years on blogs that just aggregate content from other places. Especially tumblr. I agree with her that Pinterest does make it easy to do – I’m more lax in my ideas of copyright though. I feel like with a link back and proper credit sharing is great – I have that stated in the footer on my site.
That’s the reason for all the different copyright laws though, something for everyone! Thanks so much for your comment and for signing up for my mailing list! :)
I love Pinterest big time. I am always very careful to pin from the maker’s site so that the link goes there. If I can’t I track down the person’s name–easy with image search on Google (enhanced image search–upload image–it looks for it). If I do not know the name I put “I’ll track it down” in the comments and give what info I know.
I usually use http://www.tineye.com/ to try and track down an image’s source, I’ll have to try google’s enhanced image search next time. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for that info, AManda. I posted it on my pinterest board :)
I have been following you since I found you on livejournal a couple years ago. I love your creativity! Thanks for the information on how to set your site to no pin. Very useful!
My biggest pet peeve is with pinners, not pinterest. The fact the most people can’t be bothered to included some informational text about the image keeps me from repinning many things I’d ordinarily like to but don’t because I don’t have time to click thru every single image to find credit. I hate that most images are accompanied with text like “.” or “so pretty” or “pretty colors” or “cool!” Uurrrghghg!
Obviously, I care mostly only about art and photography – work created for the sole purpose of ART as opposed to pictures of hair, beauty, or products or silly internet memes or anything like that. I’m not a stickler about those things since their purpose is to showcase something WITHIN the image, not the image itself. I just wish more people took the time to highlight a few informational/important words on the original website before hitting the pin button!
I’m trying to be better about that, it’s easy to get lazy with the descriptions. Thanks for reminding me how annoying it is! :)
Oh it’s totally easy to get lazy. I never noticed that you were bad about it at all! Haha. I don’t pay much attention to the pinner though, just what’s being pinned. :)
what a timely post! I saw one of your journal pages on someone’s pinterest board and liked it so much I followed the link and here I am! So thanks for staying with Pinterest, it certainly introduces me to blogs I would otherwise miss. Loving your pages, and your little one is adorable!
I also came here from pinterest, looking for a journal (which I’m still looking for because someone didn’t pin from a static link,) and I agree with you totally. I read that post about the questions with the law, and frankly, I think a lot of my pinning falls under “critique” which is fair use. No, I’m not writing a critical piece and publishing it, but I am collecting images to look critically at art, illustration, photography, etc. To see what works and what doesn’t, to be inspired and to pinpoint the elements that I really love. When I pin, I make sure to credit, and when I repin… well, I am still trying not to be over enthusiastic and remember to check the links and not repin things that go nowhere.