Pinterest Legal Concerns Grow Bigger
Sure Pinterest is all the rage right now, but did its’ founders and investors make sound legal decisions before deciding on a business model? You may have read the blog post of Kirsten Kowalski, a lawyer and photographer who “tearfully” deleted all of her pinboards from Pinterest. Kirsten and numerous others are deciding that the risks of re-posting copyrighted images outweigh the benefits of sharing and inspiration. Are you breaking the law when you use Pinterest?
While Pinterest has also been accused of not being 100% honest with it’s growing userbase, the copyright issue is a serious risk.
- Reposting of images without the owners permission
- Storing the images on Pinterest servers
- Redisplaying images (thumbnails and full-size) for profit without showing source/credit
- Non-direct linkage to original site
- Pinterest Terms of Use shift all responsibility to the user
Pinterest supporters argue that re-posting images in Pinterest is not any different than a search engine that displays thumbnails of Web sites and content. However, there is a major difference in that Pinterest pulls full-size images from the remote sites, saves them to Pinterest servers, and then re-displays the images for profit. Often the source of the image is not identified, and the original image author/photographer gets no credit. While Pinterest does enable click-through to the original site, the original link is only accessible after several clicks.
Once the copyright infringement concerns became apparent the company rewrote their Terms of Use to shift all legal liability to the Pinterest users. Artists concerned about Pinterest are taking a stand. Many retailers are avoiding Pinterest for the same reasons.
Read more about Pinterest legal issues:
Pinterest: A Company to Watch on Legal Concerns
Pinterest legal discussion on Quora
Can your Company Get Sued for Using Pinterest?
