hot topic: to pin to not to pin?

A collection of images.

If you’re a follower of IP blogs and Twitter feeds, it will not have escaped your attention that one of the trending topics is the copyright implications of ‘pinning’ images on Pinterest. There doesn’t seem to be much agreement, which could be a bad thing or a good thing. Bad, because we’d all like to know where we stand, right? (all we pinners, that is). But good, because it could mean that a new interpretation of current laws is in the wind - it’s always fun watching established law catch up with current technology - a real tortoise and hare thing. First the law gets a grip, then technology dashes out in some unexpected direction again...

So what’s with Pinterest and copyright? Well, as many blog posts will remind you - here's one, for example  - most images on the internet are NOT in the public domain, and you probably are infringing someone’s copyright if you have a presence on Pinterest. Of course, as the blog post says, you can carefully ensure that every image you pin is either public domain or you have permission...yah, yah - lawyer talk, eh? How many Pinterest users go down this route? Many such comments are directed as cautions to businesses who might be looking to use Pinterest to promote their business. It is true that if there’s commercial advantage involved, copyright owners might have stronger reasons to object to the wholesale flouting of their rights. 

Let’s not belittle the potential problem. For every owner of an image who is thrilled to see it going viral on Pinterest, there is a professional photographer who’s income is dependent upon reimbursement for use of the images they have created. 

Then there’s the boys of the Wild West, the early-adopters, who see Pinterest as the next great marketing opportunity. Here's one  who has instructions for just the right sized graphic to pin up there, and claims to have attracted 14,000+ re-pins with one graphic, which resulted in massive traffic to the client’s site.

There are lawyers who shake their virtual heads and warn that Pinterest is the next Napster - and others  who claim that the hoo-ha is a storm in a teacup.

There’s a lot of comment on whether pinning an image is sufficient to invoke the ‘fair use’ defence in copyright law - this blogger  suggests that Pinterest should change the words ‘describe your pin’ to ‘comment on your pin’ to help bring it within this defence. A truly lawyerly response. 

So we all watch with fascination to see how this plays out. The Pinterest people themselves have provided a bit of code that can be used to prevent pinning - Flickr has provided this for use by people who put their photographs up on that site. Disgruntled copyright owners can have access (in the USA, or equivalents elsewhere)  to the DCMA take-down provisions. 

The most interesting thing of all will be to see how the law evolves to deal with this latest digital communications phenomenon. For example, since it is possible now to add some “no pin” code (just as it is possible to prevent “embedding” from YouTube) - if you put an image on the internet without utilising that freely available protection, could it be argued that you’ve given an implied consent to its free use? 

Then there’s the point, sometimes rising to the surface through all the sound-and-noise, that an image on Pinterest (unlike on Facebook) retains the metadata pointing to its source. If you see an image on Pinterest, you can click through and find the site it came from. That’s the whole point of using Pinterest to drive traffic to websites, the very thing that makes it valuable to potential commercial users. Is Pinterest use then more like making a collection than making a reproduction? There are lobbying efforts out there urging broader interpretations of exceptions to copyright. Expect to hear more on this topic.

There’s certainly an argument that if you’re a commercial image-maker putting your valuable high-quality images out on the web without any sharing-disabling code, you’re really playing in the traffic. 

My favourite find in the last week is a virtual law firm who has joyfully embraced the Pinterest ethic, and has a wonderful selection of Pinterest boards, including lovely office lobbies, a legal book collection, legal ads and an art collection.

it’s a jungle out there

As everyone leaps with enthusiasm onto social networking platforms - well, perhaps not everyone! - it is good to pause for a moment and consider some of the pitfalls of the changing dynamic. With blogs that allow comments, Facebook pages that encourage comments, and Twitter, which is one huge round of chatter, it is important to state the obvious: ANYONE can join your conversation.

With a blog you have (or should have) the ability to moderate comments - that is, to check them before they appear. Always enable this feature, so that you can prevent spam and malicious comments. But don’t use it to stifle lively discussion, or readers soon won’t want to talk with you.

The well-known website TripAdvisor is a platform for travellers to post reviews of accommodation businesses. It was reported recently  that the site has been rapped on the knuckles by the UK advertising watchdog for using phrases such as “reviews you can trust”, when in fact there is a risk of fraudulent posts (despite TripAdvisor’s efforts to prevent it). Even discounting outright fraud, a disgruntled patron, whether they are in the right or not, can potentially threaten a small business. Here's a story like that: a small B&B has to battle what it claims are slanderous comments by one disgruntled former guest. Whatever the rights and wrongs of individual cases - beware. TripAdvisor has a facility for proprietors to publicly answer any negative (or positive) comments - use it judiciously. But even that may not protect you against a malicious person.

The ordinary folk who post their comments all over the internet - as invited - often have no conception of the havoc they can wreak, of the potential power in their hands. The general consensus is against censoring the internet - witness the (rather unthinking) backlash against Twitter for trying to comply with specific country laws. After all, the freedom of the internet has opened so many doors and empowered so many people. But like copyright infringement, slander is still illegal. It’s just that both are more or less impossible to enforce if you are a micro-business and the perpetrator is sitting at their computer in a foreign land.

But what about the lovely concept of “community”? The internet has enabled many like-minded folk to congregate in conversation, and business. The wonderful site for indie craftspeople, etsy, would be a safe haven for small creators, you’d think. But small creators are plagued by copyright rip-offs of their designs. Etsy will take down the sites of sellers who are proven to engage in this nefarious practice deliberately.  Most indie craftspeople are very careful indeed about their work, and place a high value on originality.

But what if the worst happens and an item you use contains an image which is not in the public domain, and - horrors! - you’ve stepped on another artist’s rights? Of course you take the image down right away, apologise if there’s been a complaint. Your indie community will understand, surely. Not necessarily: the internet is a wide open forum, and not everyone who posts does so with thought. You can more likely expect a savaging and a threat to the good name of your micro-business. The lesson? Even in the close-knit indie world, don’t expect “the community” to worry too much about the damage they can wreak.

It’s everyone for themselves in the jungle.

Oh, and for another side to this cautionary tale, there was news this week of two young English people blacklisted from entering the USA, where they were bound on holiday, because the content of a couple of (they thought innocent) Twitter posts which offended strict US sensibilities about potential troublemakers.

Think before you tweet.