9 ms·

Pinterest, We Have a Problem

446 points by CMartucci 15y ago

chrisacky 15y ago
There was a similar HN post/Google+ post last week. I can't remember where I read it. Something along the lines of an avid lawyer decided to kill her account because she read the ToS and drew exactly the same conclusions as what you had just wrote. While it's quite easy to regard this as been a ticking timebomb, a few things to probably note. If you are a photographer or someone who holds copyright in a work you would most likely just issue a DMCA. Now, lets assume that you aren't content with that. You might argue that you have incurred losses and want some form of damages. You are first going to have to contact Pinterest to get the information of the user who has listed this said work. Are Pinterest goijng to give up this information so willingly? Probably not...
- cbs 15y ago
  >You are first going to have to contact Pinterest to get the information of the user who has listed this said work. Are Pinterest goijng to give up this information so willingly? Probably not... IIRC, in this case you sue John Doe and have the court compel Pinterest to identify him.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    Does pinterest require identifying information in order to register?
    - girlvinyl 15y ago
      It requires a facebook or twitter login. Plus it should have some kind of IP log somewhere. Pinterest won't have the entire identity, but this is how e-discovery works. You keep sending subpoenas up the hierarchy until you get to the ISP. The ISP provides the subscriber information.
- cobrien 15y ago
  > There was a similar HN post/Google+ post last week. I can't remember where I read it. Something along the lines of an avid lawyer decided to kill her account because she read the ToS and drew exactly the same conclusions as what you had just wrote. The relevant article and HN discussion is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3660323 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3660323
yuvadam 15y ago
Oh please, not again. Absolutely any and every product you use has ridiculous Terms of Service. These documents are drafted up by lawyers. Their job is not to please the end users who care to read through the legalese. Their job is to create a document that will protect the product vendor in court, if and when the time comes. Lets put an end to finding eccentricities in ToSs/EULAs, it's getting kind of redundant. If this is some sort of game to see who can find the most absurd clauses in these documents, we're all losing.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Terretta 15y ago
  For "content" creators, these are not absurdities, these are terms that can make or break your ability to get paid for your work and put food on the table. A photographer having to go to court to defend his ownership of photos they'd exhibited through twitpic and get paid by newspapers who claimed the ToS said he'd released his rights, demonstrates this is not a "please not again" problem, this is ongoing, big corps are misusing these at the expense of individual artists, and the problem's getting worse. Every day I talk to artists who have no idea that posting their latest music video to a video sharing site could give that company performance rights in other media, or, as in this case, that pinning their own photos to Pinterest would let Pinterest publish a "Best Pins of 2012" book w/o compensating the artist. This needs to be called out and both consumers and creators deserve to be informed.
  - pork 15y ago
    Let me rephrase GP's comment, since I felt the same thing as them. Allow me to set out a hypothetical. You find that Pinterest's terms are awful, and stage a very successful revolt with your own site, sans the offensive terms. Users flock to your site, and Pinterest dies a sad death. One of the copyright owners of your "pinned" content decides to go after you, and decides to sue the pants off you. So you freak out and hire a top-notch lawyer, who will draft a new set of terms for your users to shield you from the liability you now realize you have. Repeat, iterate, and before you know it -- your top-notch lawyer guarantees that you will face no more expensive liability, but you now have the onerous terms set out in practically all sites that allow user-generated content. Basically, these terms allow you to bump the liability from yourself to the user who uploaded it (because they have pinned the pictures in bad faith, in violation of your terms, etc.) So there's really no point railing against the terms -- they aren't going away, and the best you can hope for is very minor modifications of wording with sufficient popular pressure. Good luck on that.
brador 15y ago
Could this argument also apply to sites like Readability? Since it removes advertising (hence income for the writers) from articles.
- viraptor 15y ago
  I don't think so, unless readability grants itself rights to reproduce and sell every article that passes through its engine. Does it?
  - icebraining 15y ago
    Maybe not sell, but they it'd be impossible for Readability to work without reproducing the articles.
veverkap 15y ago
Didn't Pinterest address this to a certain degree? At least from the content creators - http://blog.pinterest.com/post/17949261591/growing-up http://blog.pinterest.com/post/17949261591/growing-up says that you can add a meta tag marking your content as not pinnable.
- FireBeyond 15y ago
  "To a certain degree"... Not so much... So I, as a Content Creator, have to a) be mindful of, and b) take action to opt out of 1) Pinterest, 2) any other of a potentially large number of sites / applications, purely in order to ensure said sites don't claim commercial rights to and derive income from my work and effort? Not the way it works, or should work, say I.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    You can send a DMCA takedown request if you see that someone is misusing your content. What exactly do you propose? Eliminate any website with user submitted content? I mean, what if someone posts a work to Hacker News without permission, should YCombinator be held liable?
edwinnathaniel 15y ago
Watermark the pictures in your blog? By the way, I found out that you can watermark all of your images that you're about to upload to Picasa Web via Picasa Desktop (there's an option to do that before you Sync to Web). I found that feature very useful if you organize your pictures using Picasa (and show them on your blog).
- duncans 15y ago
  Or some server code that serves a watermarked image if the client IP block is that of Pinterest's caching servers. People see the un-watermarked image on your site, but a watermarked one when browsed on Pinterest.
- freehunter 15y ago
  Problem is, copyright is implied on the part of the creator. It does not need to be applied for, nor is there any requirement for a copyright notice. Just because you didn't watermark your image doesn't mean the copyright now belongs to Pintrest (or imgur, or Google+, or Facebook, etc) because people who didn't hold the copyright and didn't have the standing to give it away posted it.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    And that's why you can send a DMCA takedown request and they'll have to take it down. I fail to see the problem here.
  - anothermachine 15y ago
    the watermark isn't for legal purposes, it is for communication and content-devaluation purposes
  - aiscott 15y ago
    This is true, but if you want to receive statutory damages for copyright infringement, you have to have registered your copyright. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register
mtgentry 15y ago
'The “pin” button remains inactive until the user types something. Anything. Might this count as “criticizing” or “commenting”?' Interesting. I'd like to see a court case further define what constitutes a "comment" on the web. Other sites do this too, for example Buzzfeed.com's entire business model is based on taking content from bloggers and then hosting it on their own site, without providing any kind of insightful comment. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/if-both-of-angelinas-legs-were-showing http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/if-both-of-angelinas-legs-wer...
- anothermachine 15y ago
  "commenting" is only one aspect of fair use, and it generally is interpreted to mean "copying a small snippet as an example" or "reproducing a low-resolution copy for reference" to provide context. Another aspect of fair use is "not depriving the owner of their own commercial use of the work".
cmiles74 15y ago
Pinterest is caching these images on their servers, not their customers who are only pasting in links. I find it hard to believe that these end-users will be held liable for an implementation detail on Pinterest's end. And linking, I believe is legal. These are images that are publicly available on the internet and have been made available, in most cases, by the owner. Is there really a case that copying these images off the internet is illegal?
- ceol 15y ago
  It's not an issue of copying images off the Internet. It's an issue with redistributing it, which Pinterest does. Just because an image is on the Internet does not mean it's up for grabs to whoever gets it.
OneBytePerGreen 15y ago
Pinterest has a market valuation of > 200 million dollars... 30%+ of its images are flickr images... ... 99%+ of which are "All Rights Reserved". How many ... page views, ... new subscribers, ... and $$$ have the most-pinned flickr images generated for pinterest, with the author not seeing a single cent... not even having the satisfaction of seeing their popularity on pinterest reflect in their flickr stats? And: Pinterest does not even have the decency to display the author name and license info next to the image. Pinterest's business model is flawed; it is based on systematic violation of copyright. At some point, someone will start a class-action lawsuit and invite flickr photographers whose works got "pinned" to sign up, to reclaim part of that >$200 million pie. In fact, this seems like a valid startup idea to me: Create a one-page website explaining to flickr users what has been going on. Do a systematic reverse image search to find out which authors have been affected and invite them to join. Arrange with an interested lawfirm to get a % of their fee in exchange for delivering the list of potential plaintiffs.
- js2 15y ago
  Recently, I wanted to make some picture postcards of various locations around the US for personal use, so I went looking for images. I found many on Flickr. I wanted to compensate the original photographer. There is no easy way to do this. At best, some photographs have a "request to license" link that bounces you to a third party (typically Getty Images) which offers to "Review the photo to determine if it's a good fit for licensing through us; Contact the photographer; Handle the details like releases and pricing" and takes "between two and seven days to arrange licensing." with prices typically around $100 for usable resolution for a postcard. At worst, you have to sign in to Yahoo so that you can send the photographer a message about wanting to use their photo. You may or may not get a reply, and you have to arrange how to pay the photographer, if at all. This may make sense for images which are to be used in a commercial context, but for personal use like how I wanted to use the images, it's way too expensive and much too much friction. The vast majority of images will never be used commercially. There should be an easier way to remunerate the photographer, and at more reasonable prices. A "Pix Store" if you will. Maybe that's what the stock photo sites are supposed to be, but they don't have nearly the inventory. Sorry for the tangent.
Alex3917 15y ago
So you're claiming that pinterest should pay your legal bills for you? That's ridiculous. If you upload a photo that's copyrighted by someone else and get sued, why should pinterest foot the bill for that? There is no way the service would ever be viable under those conditions, because it would create an enormous moral hazard.
- patrickaljord 15y ago
  The thing is that pinterest makes most of its money on copyrighted material uploaded without the content of the original owner, so it encourages and makes money on copyrights infringement for the main part. Just like the Pirate Bay...
- why-el 15y ago
  There is no moral hazard when they are claiming the right to sell material that might be copyrighted.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    (Almost) all material is copyrighted. The question is who owns such copyright (or a sublicensable license to it).
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    That isn't an issue because you are co-assigning your copyright to them, assuming you own the copyright. And if you don't own the copyright then it's not a valid contract, so it doesn't matter. It's not like you're legally able to sign away someone else's copyright. Which is exactly why the indemnity clause is there, to prevent pinterest from being responsible if people are dumb enough to do that.
zaroth 15y ago
If I'm a copyright holder who feels like my work is being misappropriated by Pinterest, I'm going to sue Pinterest, not the user. Their Terms of Service won't stop them from getting sued, and the indemnity clause won't magically make money appear in their pockets to pay for their defense. If they decide to start suing their users for recovery, that would be pretty amusing. "I trusted the person who gave me the image" is not a legal defense for copyright infringement. Their only chance is to stay within the DMCA safe harbor or else they will eventually be shut down.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- anothermachine 15y ago
  BTW, you mean "I trust the person who told me to take the image from a third party." Imagine calling AAA to tow "your" car, and they show up and tow it, only to find out later that it wasn't your car at all.
- wpietri 15y ago
  As my lawyer explained to me long ago, who eventually "wins" a lawsuit is rarely interesting. Cost, time, and agony to get there are much more relevant factors. The "our users represent that the content is theirs" may not keep Pinterest from losing an eventual lawsuit, but it does complicate things enough that it discourages legal action. That may be sufficient for them to cash out long before the suits are complete. Or, like YouTube, things like that may allow them to grow big enough that they end up with sufficient negotiating power that they can get away with quite a bit, and possibly reshape what's considered reasonable.
zaroth 15y ago
Speaking of the DMCA Safe Harbor... Images on Pinterest, in some cases, were not even uploaded from a user's hard drive; they were pulled in via a the 'Pin It' button (http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/ http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/) In this case, Pinterest even acknowledges that the images are not the property of the user, "When you pin from a website, we automatically grab the source link so we can credit the original creator." I'll bet the 'Pin It' button ultimately gets them in hot water, because it's hard to argue the content is 'user generated' when they know, via their 'Pin It' code, exactly where the content is actually coming from. § 512(c) [DMCA Safe Harbor] also requires that the OSP: 1) not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, 2) not be aware of the presence of infringing material or know any facts or circumstances that would make infringing material apparent, I wonder if 'the original source URL' of a image may be construed as a fact that would make infringing material apparent. IANAL.
- icebraining 15y ago
  In this case, Pinterest even acknowledges that the images are not the property of the user, "When you pin from a website, we automatically grab the source link so we can credit the original creator." And that's fine - their ToS says you need to be either the copyright holder or have consent from the copyright holder. For example, if I "pin" a CC licensed image, I have such consent.
  - waitwhat 15y ago
    their ToS says you need to be either the copyright holder or have consent from the copyright holder. I've seen warez sites with exactly the same disclaimer. It didn't work for them either.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - icebraining 15y ago
      But Youtube, Flickr, DeviantArt and thousands of other user submitted content sites are still online.
maqr 15y ago
Maybe all the buzz about Pinterest is because so many people think that finding an image online makes it publicly redistributable. "Pinning" is just another way of sharing. I get the impression that there's much wider public acceptance of sharing (pirating?) pictures than music, movies, or software. I don't have a good answer as to why this might be, but I'd be curious what HN thinks.
- elithrar 15y ago
  > I get the impression that there's much wider public acceptance of sharing (pirating?) pictures than music, movies, or software. I don't have a good answer as to why this might be, but I'd be curious what HN thinks. Anecdotally, it's because photographs and images are seen as "easier to reproduce" (whether this is true or not is another matter), and therefore possibly easier to justify by those doing the sharing. That, and there's far less friction to sharing photos/images than video and software.
  - eurleif 15y ago
    Perhaps it's also that photos seem less valuable than songs or movies, since pretty much anyone can take a decent photo? (Decent by the person's own standards, at least; maybe not by a professional photographer's.)
- uiri 15y ago
  I don't think anyone has ever run into DRM on pictures. Once polaroids became popular, everyone had access to photography which meant that there were few large corporate interests to run propaganda campaigns. There is a clear line between Hollywood films and home movies and I suspect that very few people would feel bad about sharing home movies without the consent of the person/family in/recording the movie compared with how many people would feel some kind of guilt about sharing a feature length blockbuster. So the attitude of the creators and the diversity of creators seem to play a large role in determining public acceptance of sharing certain things.
rjurney 15y ago
I am SO fucking sick of douchebag angst driven attacks by sniveling failure-driven wannabees on legalese in terms of service that are essential to make any and every successful consumer Internet site, application or platform work. If you don't like it, don't use it. Go back to the pre-social web with your mom and grandmother. If you are going to criticize it or upvote it, think for a moment about the reasoning behind it. Yesterday Path. Today Pinterest. Let's hope someone else makes something great for you to kick in the teeth tomorrow. Shut the fuck up already.
- angryasian 15y ago
  don't know why im responding to obvious troll. but they are really no better than megaupload at this point. Redistributing copy righted material without permission. Its a far bigger legal matter.
xn 15y ago
If posting an image with a comment is fair use, then arguably the combination of the image and the comment constitute the Member Content for which the poster is claiming ownership. If I publish a review of a work of art, including a reproduction of the work, in a magazine, my copyright would cover the entire article including the reproduction. I wouldn't be claiming copyright on the original work.
- ajross 15y ago
  That's pretty much how I see it too. Yes, you own the review, which includes the right to the image for the fair use purposes of explaining the review only. There is no transitive right if you sell that review to use the image for any other purpose. I too find this insane. If anything qualifies for fair use, surely pinterest does. "Hey look at this cool thing!" is about as close as I can imagine to the platonic ideal of discussing a copyrighted work. No one freaked out over /r/pics, so what's the deal here? I hesitate to point out that pinterest differs mostly in the gender demographics of the user base, but... yeah.
  - dangrossman 15y ago
    > No one freaked out over /r/pics, /r/pics is just a collection of links to images; it does not reproduce or redistribute the images.
    - ajross 15y ago
      Right, but that's the same sort of legalese excuse-making. It has nothing to do with whether or not /r/pics constitutes fair use, just if-it-isn't-fair-use-who-gets-sued? No one, at the time or now, seriously thought that there was a legal problem for anyone with reddit. So why pinterest? Again, part of me is really suspicious that it's because it's a chick site that doesn't cater to geeks.
    - ajross 15y ago
      Right, but that's the same sort of legalese excuse-making (or alternatively: just substitute imgur, which hosts most of that content). It has nothing to do with whether or not /r/pics constitutes fair use, just if-it-isn't-fair-use-who-gets-sued? No one, at the time or now, seriously thought that there was a legal problem for anyone with reddit. So why pinterest? Again, part of me is really suspicious that it's because it's a chick site that doesn't cater to geeks.
villagefool 15y ago
Funny thing is that Pinterest in their terms of service are asking people to follow rules they are breaking for other services...
jfarmer 15y ago
I have one direct comment and one meta-comment about the issue of Pinteret and copyright. First, I see no issue with their Terms of Service. That language is 100% cover-your-ass boilerplate, and any site that allows people to upload content will have a similar clause in their ToS. Facebook, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. all do. See, e.g., section 6.C of YouTube's ToS: http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms If you find people are sharing your copyrighted material on Pinterest you should file a DMCA claim with them. That's how the mechanism is designed to work, for better or worse. Second, when you react viscerally to what Pinterest is doing or enabling, think carefully about your opinion of YouTube. With respect to content, is there a substantive difference between these early days of Pinterest and the early days of YouTube? The MPAA is probably saying, "See? You don't like it when it happens to you, either."
- antiterra 15y ago
  The indemnification clause is definitely 100% boilerplate and used in most any site that allows user-generated content. Facebook contains it near verbatim in item 15.2 of their terms. The license grant is a bit different, since Facebook allows you to terminate the license, though under particular conditions. The significant issue here is the idea that the intended primary use for Pinterest may infringe on the rights of others. This is what took down Napster, and, to me, indemnifying Pintereist is too risky at this point. It's my understanding that Pinterest is attempting to move to licensed and sponsored pins and they haven't annoyed any large industry groups and might even fare better legally than YouTube did. Who knows.
  - jfarmer 15y ago
    Yes, they're definitely playing with fire, and they'll have to address it soon given the rate they're growing. But the outrage, outrage, OUTRAGE at Pinterest over this clause here just tells me people are ignorant of (1) what this clause really means and (2) how many times they've agreed to it in the past. It's 100% nerdrage in my opinion, and a month from now nobody will be talking about it.
    - 15y ago
aiscott 15y ago
I'm an amateur photographer, and I wasn't too concerned about this until I read that by Pinning something, their TOS says I am granting them rights to sell my work. I don't like that very much. By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services. The rest just seems like standard CYA stuff.
- jfarmer 15y ago
  Again, this is 100% boilerplate. YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc. will all have similar clauses. See for example section 6.C in YouTube's ToS. http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms Why? Because without this blanket waiver it opens them up to all kinds of legal issues since a core mechanic of their site is re-pinning. If you upload a photo to their site and someone else re-pins it, did that person just violate your copyright? If Pinterest implements a "most popular pins" page and features one of your photos on that page, did they just violate your copyright? Yes, you can come up with legalese for each potential scenario, but it really does complicate things. It's easier for them to just have a blanket clause and act in good faith, than open themselves up to the possibility of accidentally using someone's work in a way their ToS didn't whitelist.
  - adamc 15y ago
    Saying it's boilerplate doesn't make it right. It's scammy.
    - icebraining 15y ago
      What do you propose instead?
      - 15y ago
mikeknoop 15y ago
So here is a thought. I presume the article is mostly critical of the terms based on comments here. But consider a service without any "ownership" terms, etc. Two scenarios: 1. When a user "pins" an image elsewhere online, the image is downloaded by Pinterest to their server. When other users browse Pinterest, it is served directly by Pinterest's servers. 2. When a user "pins" an image elsewhere online, the image URL is saved by Pinterest to their server. When other users browse Pinterest, they are downloading the image directly from the original source. Scenario (1) I see legal issues with. But scenario (2)? Isn't Pinterest simply providing a link (ala a search engine)? Moreover, isn't this just how the internet works? Surely this has come up before yet I am having trouble finding a similar case.
JBiserkov 15y ago
http://500px.com/terms http://500px.com/terms I prefer the old ones though http://web.archive.org/web/20110619022738/http://500px.com/terms http://web.archive.org/web/20110619022738/http://500px.com/t...
billpatrianakos 15y ago
What we have here is manufactured outrage. Total non-story. I hope others don't start piling on now that this has been written. The real deal is that Pinterest is screwed either way. These terms sound scary but so long as they are enforced sanely there should be no problem. What do you expect them to do? Assume liability for users posting content they should not be posting? They might as well not exist. A lot of startups these days may as well not even try to get traction as long as bloggers keep getting their panties in a twist over every TOS they see. Pinterest provides a service for free that people seem to love. So long as no one is paying them and they haven't gone public they're damn smart to have these terms. If I ran Pinterest I wouldn't want to assume liability for some asshole who leaks a top secret photo on my site that I let him use for free and as long as I'm giving that service for free I'm going to make some cash out of my users. This is nowhere near evil. It's business. If someone doesn't like it they don't have to use it. Question: How do you get over writer's block? Answer: Start reading some terms of service or privacy policy docs from any popular online startup and manufacture some outrage over it. Truth is, if you read any TOS or privacy policy you're going to find something you can turn into a big deal most of the time. I've had it with the TOS/privacy policy outrage blogs.
- lwat 15y ago
  So your argument is that everyone has bad TOSes and therefore we should just ignore it?
  - billpatrianakos 15y ago
    It's one thing to find something truly damning in a TOS and something else entirely to nitpick standard boilerplate legalese meant to protect companies from the very same people who nitpick the TOS in the first place. I know it's cool to be contrarian around here but give me a break. Look at this like a human, not a robot, and you'll see this is a mountain made out of a mole hill. Not saying you in particular are looking at this like a robot, I was speaking in general there.
    - lwat 15y ago
kfcm 15y ago
Just opening the door for business casual G-men [video]: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382781/business-casual-g-men http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382781/business-casual...
yonasb 15y ago
One phrase comes to mind after reading this: "so what." It's not about what the terms say, it's about how they're enforced. I don't see any users getting sued, just a bunch of stories on how you could potentially get sued.
danboarder 15y ago
Pinterest is more like a visual social bookmarking service than a blog. When people save bookmarks or share links on delicious or reddit or even twitter, of course they don't claim ownership of that content, it's just a bookmark. Similarly, with Pintrest people are saving a visual bookmark of something they saw that was interesting out on the web or on other social streams, tumblr, etc. I think a lot of people are missing the point here.
otterley 15y ago
I am an attorney (and as far as I can tell, the author is not one, so take his "analysis" with a pillar of salt). This is not legal advice though. With respect to the following paragraph: "So, if you snap an awesome photograph, upload it to your blog, and someone pins it, that person is either (1) claiming exclusive ownership of it; or (2) giving Pinterest your consent to reproduce it (and you just thought you were being flattered)." Actually, no. You can't transfer a right you don't have. All rights to a work are vested in the author of a protected work; only the author can consent to any of the activities protected by copyright. It's just like selling a house you don't own. First, you're committing fraud if you falsely represent that you have the right to sell it; and second, the actual owner isn't bound by anything you have done (the deed doesn't go to the putative buyer).
- 1point2 15y ago
  And there in lies the problem with TOS (or is the problem with the law?) if one needs to be an attorney to understand them, what hope is there for the ordinary folk - just saying. No wonder people just click through.
- raimondious 15y ago
  This is my issue with the article. If your rights as content creator are violated by Pinterest, then that's between you and Pinterest. If Pinterest were to say "but user 4023 said it was ours to use!" my reaction would be "so what?"
fotoblur 15y ago
Pinterest and Tumblr are by far the worse offenders when it comes to sharing content from other providers as its not 100% clear, or sometimes elusive, on how visitor can view the original content. Its as if these sites are cutting content providers out of the loop which is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They are essentially going to injure the entire ecosystem of sharing if they keep up with these practices (http://www.sv411.com/index.php/2012/02/pinterest-gets-caught-changing-user-links-for-extra-income/ http://www.sv411.com/index.php/2012/02/pinterest-gets-caught...). What's worse is that these shady sharing practices have begun to support a broader ecosystem of image finding scavengers such as http://www.whattopin.com http://www.whattopin.com (see below). Here is a support ticket we received today at Fotoblur which illustrates the problems we are seeing (a bit of broken English but you get the picture): "I am user the http://www.fotoblur.com/portfolio/agnieszkabalut?p=1&id=370425 http://www.fotoblur.com/portfolio/agnieszkabalut?p=1&id=... Another user Elinka used my photo art- senza titolo2 by Agnieszka Balut....... (via Elinka) in the web-site http://www.whattopin.com/topic/photography/?id=283634 http://www.whattopin.com/topic/photography/?id=283634 - Printerest (commercial use) and in the http://elinka.tumblr.com/post/18734723798/senza-titolo2-by-agnieszka-balut http://elinka.tumblr.com/post/18734723798/senza-titolo2-by-a... without my permission. All my images are protected by Copyright (reproduction and printing). All images on these are the exclusive property of Agnieszka Balut and protected by the Copyright . Therefore prohibited the publication and reproduction without written permission from Agnieszka Balut. Any violation will be prosecuted." As you can see, this type of sharing confuses people. We usually explain "fair use" to them but they really don't care. They feel they have rights and they want action taken. I can fully understand why Flickr blocked Pinterest if they have been getting the complaints such as we've seen. In the end the burden falls on the image owner and what ends up happening is they have to chase down every site owner whose members improperly post their content. They then lose faith in participating at all because of their inability to control their content.
EGreg 15y ago
This is the problem with importing PUBLIC CONTENT YOU FIND ON THE INTERNET into a website. Not uploading from your computer, or importing from your own account somewhere on another site. If the website actually makes a copy of the media (picture, etc.) and stores it on their servers, they should hope that the DMCA still considers them a safe harbor. I think their best bet is to store the images only as a cache, and not as a permanent import. If the site owner decides to take down the original, then the cache should disappear soon thereafter.
treelovinhippie 15y ago
I was under the assumption that all social-based sites/companies follow the same policy, not so they can resell user content, but so they can eventually go through an acquisition without facing a class action lawsuit from its users who would demand a % of the sale. e.g. Geocities.
npsimons 15y ago
I think many are dismissing this as "standard TOS/EULA legalese" and missing the point. Let's consider a scenario: let's say you post some photos online, and license them under the CC-By-SA license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). Then someone pins the photos you took to Pinterest. Next, Pinterest sells the photos you took, then catches someone copying or modifying the photos you took and sues them for copyright. To top it all off, Pinterest doesn't even give you attribution. This is exactly the sort of thing that CC and GPL were created to combat: ruining someone's life through the legal system based on abuse of the copyright system. You want to sue someone over copyright violations of information you have copyright on? Fine. You want to sell something licensed under CC-By-SA? Fine. But you better be ready to comply to the license and allow whoever you give those works to the right to copy, sell and modify those works. I highly doubt Pinterest is prepared for this, and their TOS is overreaching.

446 points by CMartucci 15y ago

There was a similar HN post/Google+ post last week. I can't remember where I read it. Something along the lines of an avid lawyer decided to kill her account because she read the ToS and drew exactly the same conclusions as what you had just wrote. While it's quite easy to regard this as been a ticking timebomb, a few things to probably note. If you are a photographer or someone who holds copyright in a work you would most likely just issue a DMCA. Now, lets assume that you aren't content with that. You might argue that you have incurred losses and want some form of damages. You are first going to have to contact Pinterest to get the information of the user who has listed this said work. Are Pinterest goijng to give up this information so willingly? Probably not...

cbs 15y ago
>You are first going to have to contact Pinterest to get the information of the user who has listed this said work. Are Pinterest goijng to give up this information so willingly? Probably not... IIRC, in this case you sue John Doe and have the court compel Pinterest to identify him.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  Does pinterest require identifying information in order to register?
  - girlvinyl 15y ago
    It requires a facebook or twitter login. Plus it should have some kind of IP log somewhere. Pinterest won't have the entire identity, but this is how e-discovery works. You keep sending subpoenas up the hierarchy until you get to the ISP. The ISP provides the subscriber information.
cobrien 15y ago
> There was a similar HN post/Google+ post last week. I can't remember where I read it. Something along the lines of an avid lawyer decided to kill her account because she read the ToS and drew exactly the same conclusions as what you had just wrote. The relevant article and HN discussion is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3660323 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3660323

yuvadam 15y ago

Oh please, not again. Absolutely any and every product you use has ridiculous Terms of Service. These documents are drafted up by lawyers. Their job is not to please the end users who care to read through the legalese. Their job is to create a document that will protect the product vendor in court, if and when the time comes. Lets put an end to finding eccentricities in ToSs/EULAs, it's getting kind of redundant. If this is some sort of game to see who can find the most absurd clauses in these documents, we're all losing.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Terretta 15y ago
For "content" creators, these are not absurdities, these are terms that can make or break your ability to get paid for your work and put food on the table. A photographer having to go to court to defend his ownership of photos they'd exhibited through twitpic and get paid by newspapers who claimed the ToS said he'd released his rights, demonstrates this is not a "please not again" problem, this is ongoing, big corps are misusing these at the expense of individual artists, and the problem's getting worse. Every day I talk to artists who have no idea that posting their latest music video to a video sharing site could give that company performance rights in other media, or, as in this case, that pinning their own photos to Pinterest would let Pinterest publish a "Best Pins of 2012" book w/o compensating the artist. This needs to be called out and both consumers and creators deserve to be informed.
- pork 15y ago
  Let me rephrase GP's comment, since I felt the same thing as them. Allow me to set out a hypothetical. You find that Pinterest's terms are awful, and stage a very successful revolt with your own site, sans the offensive terms. Users flock to your site, and Pinterest dies a sad death. One of the copyright owners of your "pinned" content decides to go after you, and decides to sue the pants off you. So you freak out and hire a top-notch lawyer, who will draft a new set of terms for your users to shield you from the liability you now realize you have. Repeat, iterate, and before you know it -- your top-notch lawyer guarantees that you will face no more expensive liability, but you now have the onerous terms set out in practically all sites that allow user-generated content. Basically, these terms allow you to bump the liability from yourself to the user who uploaded it (because they have pinned the pictures in bad faith, in violation of your terms, etc.) So there's really no point railing against the terms -- they aren't going away, and the best you can hope for is very minor modifications of wording with sufficient popular pressure. Good luck on that.

brador 15y ago

Could this argument also apply to sites like Readability? Since it removes advertising (hence income for the writers) from articles.

viraptor 15y ago
I don't think so, unless readability grants itself rights to reproduce and sell every article that passes through its engine. Does it?
- icebraining 15y ago
  Maybe not sell, but they it'd be impossible for Readability to work without reproducing the articles.

veverkap 15y ago

Didn't Pinterest address this to a certain degree? At least from the content creators - http://blog.pinterest.com/post/17949261591/growing-up http://blog.pinterest.com/post/17949261591/growing-up says that you can add a meta tag marking your content as not pinnable.

FireBeyond 15y ago
"To a certain degree"... Not so much... So I, as a Content Creator, have to a) be mindful of, and b) take action to opt out of 1) Pinterest, 2) any other of a potentially large number of sites / applications, purely in order to ensure said sites don't claim commercial rights to and derive income from my work and effort? Not the way it works, or should work, say I.
- icebraining 15y ago
  You can send a DMCA takedown request if you see that someone is misusing your content. What exactly do you propose? Eliminate any website with user submitted content? I mean, what if someone posts a work to Hacker News without permission, should YCombinator be held liable?

edwinnathaniel 15y ago

Watermark the pictures in your blog? By the way, I found out that you can watermark all of your images that you're about to upload to Picasa Web via Picasa Desktop (there's an option to do that before you Sync to Web). I found that feature very useful if you organize your pictures using Picasa (and show them on your blog).

duncans 15y ago
Or some server code that serves a watermarked image if the client IP block is that of Pinterest's caching servers. People see the un-watermarked image on your site, but a watermarked one when browsed on Pinterest.
freehunter 15y ago
Problem is, copyright is implied on the part of the creator. It does not need to be applied for, nor is there any requirement for a copyright notice. Just because you didn't watermark your image doesn't mean the copyright now belongs to Pintrest (or imgur, or Google+, or Facebook, etc) because people who didn't hold the copyright and didn't have the standing to give it away posted it.
- icebraining 15y ago
  And that's why you can send a DMCA takedown request and they'll have to take it down. I fail to see the problem here.
- anothermachine 15y ago
  the watermark isn't for legal purposes, it is for communication and content-devaluation purposes
- aiscott 15y ago
  This is true, but if you want to receive statutory damages for copyright infringement, you have to have registered your copyright. http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register

mtgentry 15y ago

'The “pin” button remains inactive until the user types something. Anything. Might this count as “criticizing” or “commenting”?' Interesting. I'd like to see a court case further define what constitutes a "comment" on the web. Other sites do this too, for example Buzzfeed.com's entire business model is based on taking content from bloggers and then hosting it on their own site, without providing any kind of insightful comment. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/if-both-of-angelinas-legs-were-showing http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/if-both-of-angelinas-legs-wer...

anothermachine 15y ago
"commenting" is only one aspect of fair use, and it generally is interpreted to mean "copying a small snippet as an example" or "reproducing a low-resolution copy for reference" to provide context. Another aspect of fair use is "not depriving the owner of their own commercial use of the work".

cmiles74 15y ago

Pinterest is caching these images on their servers, not their customers who are only pasting in links. I find it hard to believe that these end-users will be held liable for an implementation detail on Pinterest's end. And linking, I believe is legal. These are images that are publicly available on the internet and have been made available, in most cases, by the owner. Is there really a case that copying these images off the internet is illegal?

ceol 15y ago
It's not an issue of copying images off the Internet. It's an issue with redistributing it, which Pinterest does. Just because an image is on the Internet does not mean it's up for grabs to whoever gets it.

OneBytePerGreen 15y ago

Pinterest has a market valuation of > 200 million dollars... 30%+ of its images are flickr images... ... 99%+ of which are "All Rights Reserved". How many ... page views, ... new subscribers, ... and $$$ have the most-pinned flickr images generated for pinterest, with the author not seeing a single cent... not even having the satisfaction of seeing their popularity on pinterest reflect in their flickr stats? And: Pinterest does not even have the decency to display the author name and license info next to the image. Pinterest's business model is flawed; it is based on systematic violation of copyright. At some point, someone will start a class-action lawsuit and invite flickr photographers whose works got "pinned" to sign up, to reclaim part of that >$200 million pie. In fact, this seems like a valid startup idea to me: Create a one-page website explaining to flickr users what has been going on. Do a systematic reverse image search to find out which authors have been affected and invite them to join. Arrange with an interested lawfirm to get a % of their fee in exchange for delivering the list of potential plaintiffs.

js2 15y ago
Recently, I wanted to make some picture postcards of various locations around the US for personal use, so I went looking for images. I found many on Flickr. I wanted to compensate the original photographer. There is no easy way to do this. At best, some photographs have a "request to license" link that bounces you to a third party (typically Getty Images) which offers to "Review the photo to determine if it's a good fit for licensing through us; Contact the photographer; Handle the details like releases and pricing" and takes "between two and seven days to arrange licensing." with prices typically around $100 for usable resolution for a postcard. At worst, you have to sign in to Yahoo so that you can send the photographer a message about wanting to use their photo. You may or may not get a reply, and you have to arrange how to pay the photographer, if at all. This may make sense for images which are to be used in a commercial context, but for personal use like how I wanted to use the images, it's way too expensive and much too much friction. The vast majority of images will never be used commercially. There should be an easier way to remunerate the photographer, and at more reasonable prices. A "Pix Store" if you will. Maybe that's what the stock photo sites are supposed to be, but they don't have nearly the inventory. Sorry for the tangent.

Alex3917 15y ago

So you're claiming that pinterest should pay your legal bills for you? That's ridiculous. If you upload a photo that's copyrighted by someone else and get sued, why should pinterest foot the bill for that? There is no way the service would ever be viable under those conditions, because it would create an enormous moral hazard.

patrickaljord 15y ago
The thing is that pinterest makes most of its money on copyrighted material uploaded without the content of the original owner, so it encourages and makes money on copyrights infringement for the main part. Just like the Pirate Bay...
why-el 15y ago
There is no moral hazard when they are claiming the right to sell material that might be copyrighted.
- icebraining 15y ago
  (Almost) all material is copyrighted. The question is who owns such copyright (or a sublicensable license to it).
- Alex3917 15y ago
  That isn't an issue because you are co-assigning your copyright to them, assuming you own the copyright. And if you don't own the copyright then it's not a valid contract, so it doesn't matter. It's not like you're legally able to sign away someone else's copyright. Which is exactly why the indemnity clause is there, to prevent pinterest from being responsible if people are dumb enough to do that.

zaroth 15y ago

If I'm a copyright holder who feels like my work is being misappropriated by Pinterest, I'm going to sue Pinterest, not the user. Their Terms of Service won't stop them from getting sued, and the indemnity clause won't magically make money appear in their pockets to pay for their defense. If they decide to start suing their users for recovery, that would be pretty amusing. "I trusted the person who gave me the image" is not a legal defense for copyright infringement. Their only chance is to stay within the DMCA safe harbor or else they will eventually be shut down.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
anothermachine 15y ago
BTW, you mean "I trust the person who told me to take the image from a third party." Imagine calling AAA to tow "your" car, and they show up and tow it, only to find out later that it wasn't your car at all.
wpietri 15y ago
As my lawyer explained to me long ago, who eventually "wins" a lawsuit is rarely interesting. Cost, time, and agony to get there are much more relevant factors. The "our users represent that the content is theirs" may not keep Pinterest from losing an eventual lawsuit, but it does complicate things enough that it discourages legal action. That may be sufficient for them to cash out long before the suits are complete. Or, like YouTube, things like that may allow them to grow big enough that they end up with sufficient negotiating power that they can get away with quite a bit, and possibly reshape what's considered reasonable.

zaroth 15y ago

Speaking of the DMCA Safe Harbor... Images on Pinterest, in some cases, were not even uploaded from a user's hard drive; they were pulled in via a the 'Pin It' button (http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/ http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/) In this case, Pinterest even acknowledges that the images are not the property of the user, "When you pin from a website, we automatically grab the source link so we can credit the original creator." I'll bet the 'Pin It' button ultimately gets them in hot water, because it's hard to argue the content is 'user generated' when they know, via their 'Pin It' code, exactly where the content is actually coming from. § 512(c) [DMCA Safe Harbor] also requires that the OSP: 1) not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, 2) not be aware of the presence of infringing material or know any facts or circumstances that would make infringing material apparent, I wonder if 'the original source URL' of a image may be construed as a fact that would make infringing material apparent. IANAL.

icebraining 15y ago
In this case, Pinterest even acknowledges that the images are not the property of the user, "When you pin from a website, we automatically grab the source link so we can credit the original creator." And that's fine - their ToS says you need to be either the copyright holder or have consent from the copyright holder. For example, if I "pin" a CC licensed image, I have such consent.
- waitwhat 15y ago
  their ToS says you need to be either the copyright holder or have consent from the copyright holder. I've seen warez sites with exactly the same disclaimer. It didn't work for them either.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 15y ago
    But Youtube, Flickr, DeviantArt and thousands of other user submitted content sites are still online.

maqr 15y ago

Maybe all the buzz about Pinterest is because so many people think that finding an image online makes it publicly redistributable. "Pinning" is just another way of sharing. I get the impression that there's much wider public acceptance of sharing (pirating?) pictures than music, movies, or software. I don't have a good answer as to why this might be, but I'd be curious what HN thinks.

elithrar 15y ago
> I get the impression that there's much wider public acceptance of sharing (pirating?) pictures than music, movies, or software. I don't have a good answer as to why this might be, but I'd be curious what HN thinks. Anecdotally, it's because photographs and images are seen as "easier to reproduce" (whether this is true or not is another matter), and therefore possibly easier to justify by those doing the sharing. That, and there's far less friction to sharing photos/images than video and software.
- eurleif 15y ago
  Perhaps it's also that photos seem less valuable than songs or movies, since pretty much anyone can take a decent photo? (Decent by the person's own standards, at least; maybe not by a professional photographer's.)
uiri 15y ago
I don't think anyone has ever run into DRM on pictures. Once polaroids became popular, everyone had access to photography which meant that there were few large corporate interests to run propaganda campaigns. There is a clear line between Hollywood films and home movies and I suspect that very few people would feel bad about sharing home movies without the consent of the person/family in/recording the movie compared with how many people would feel some kind of guilt about sharing a feature length blockbuster. So the attitude of the creators and the diversity of creators seem to play a large role in determining public acceptance of sharing certain things.

rjurney 15y ago

I am SO fucking sick of douchebag angst driven attacks by sniveling failure-driven wannabees on legalese in terms of service that are essential to make any and every successful consumer Internet site, application or platform work. If you don't like it, don't use it. Go back to the pre-social web with your mom and grandmother. If you are going to criticize it or upvote it, think for a moment about the reasoning behind it. Yesterday Path. Today Pinterest. Let's hope someone else makes something great for you to kick in the teeth tomorrow. Shut the fuck up already.

angryasian 15y ago
don't know why im responding to obvious troll. but they are really no better than megaupload at this point. Redistributing copy righted material without permission. Its a far bigger legal matter.

xn 15y ago

If posting an image with a comment is fair use, then arguably the combination of the image and the comment constitute the Member Content for which the poster is claiming ownership. If I publish a review of a work of art, including a reproduction of the work, in a magazine, my copyright would cover the entire article including the reproduction. I wouldn't be claiming copyright on the original work.

ajross 15y ago
That's pretty much how I see it too. Yes, you own the review, which includes the right to the image for the fair use purposes of explaining the review only. There is no transitive right if you sell that review to use the image for any other purpose. I too find this insane. If anything qualifies for fair use, surely pinterest does. "Hey look at this cool thing!" is about as close as I can imagine to the platonic ideal of discussing a copyrighted work. No one freaked out over /r/pics, so what's the deal here? I hesitate to point out that pinterest differs mostly in the gender demographics of the user base, but... yeah.
- dangrossman 15y ago
  > No one freaked out over /r/pics, /r/pics is just a collection of links to images; it does not reproduce or redistribute the images.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Right, but that's the same sort of legalese excuse-making. It has nothing to do with whether or not /r/pics constitutes fair use, just if-it-isn't-fair-use-who-gets-sued? No one, at the time or now, seriously thought that there was a legal problem for anyone with reddit. So why pinterest? Again, part of me is really suspicious that it's because it's a chick site that doesn't cater to geeks.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Right, but that's the same sort of legalese excuse-making (or alternatively: just substitute imgur, which hosts most of that content). It has nothing to do with whether or not /r/pics constitutes fair use, just if-it-isn't-fair-use-who-gets-sued? No one, at the time or now, seriously thought that there was a legal problem for anyone with reddit. So why pinterest? Again, part of me is really suspicious that it's because it's a chick site that doesn't cater to geeks.

villagefool 15y ago

Funny thing is that Pinterest in their terms of service are asking people to follow rules they are breaking for other services...

jfarmer 15y ago

I have one direct comment and one meta-comment about the issue of Pinteret and copyright. First, I see no issue with their Terms of Service. That language is 100% cover-your-ass boilerplate, and any site that allows people to upload content will have a similar clause in their ToS. Facebook, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. all do. See, e.g., section 6.C of YouTube's ToS: http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms If you find people are sharing your copyrighted material on Pinterest you should file a DMCA claim with them. That's how the mechanism is designed to work, for better or worse. Second, when you react viscerally to what Pinterest is doing or enabling, think carefully about your opinion of YouTube. With respect to content, is there a substantive difference between these early days of Pinterest and the early days of YouTube? The MPAA is probably saying, "See? You don't like it when it happens to you, either."

antiterra 15y ago
The indemnification clause is definitely 100% boilerplate and used in most any site that allows user-generated content. Facebook contains it near verbatim in item 15.2 of their terms. The license grant is a bit different, since Facebook allows you to terminate the license, though under particular conditions. The significant issue here is the idea that the intended primary use for Pinterest may infringe on the rights of others. This is what took down Napster, and, to me, indemnifying Pintereist is too risky at this point. It's my understanding that Pinterest is attempting to move to licensed and sponsored pins and they haven't annoyed any large industry groups and might even fare better legally than YouTube did. Who knows.
- jfarmer 15y ago
  Yes, they're definitely playing with fire, and they'll have to address it soon given the rate they're growing. But the outrage, outrage, OUTRAGE at Pinterest over this clause here just tells me people are ignorant of (1) what this clause really means and (2) how many times they've agreed to it in the past. It's 100% nerdrage in my opinion, and a month from now nobody will be talking about it.
  - 15y ago

aiscott 15y ago

I'm an amateur photographer, and I wasn't too concerned about this until I read that by Pinning something, their TOS says I am granting them rights to sell my work. I don't like that very much. By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services. The rest just seems like standard CYA stuff.

jfarmer 15y ago
Again, this is 100% boilerplate. YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc. will all have similar clauses. See for example section 6.C in YouTube's ToS. http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms Why? Because without this blanket waiver it opens them up to all kinds of legal issues since a core mechanic of their site is re-pinning. If you upload a photo to their site and someone else re-pins it, did that person just violate your copyright? If Pinterest implements a "most popular pins" page and features one of your photos on that page, did they just violate your copyright? Yes, you can come up with legalese for each potential scenario, but it really does complicate things. It's easier for them to just have a blanket clause and act in good faith, than open themselves up to the possibility of accidentally using someone's work in a way their ToS didn't whitelist.
- adamc 15y ago
  Saying it's boilerplate doesn't make it right. It's scammy.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    What do you propose instead?
    - 15y ago

mikeknoop 15y ago

So here is a thought. I presume the article is mostly critical of the terms based on comments here. But consider a service without any "ownership" terms, etc. Two scenarios: 1. When a user "pins" an image elsewhere online, the image is downloaded by Pinterest to their server. When other users browse Pinterest, it is served directly by Pinterest's servers. 2. When a user "pins" an image elsewhere online, the image URL is saved by Pinterest to their server. When other users browse Pinterest, they are downloading the image directly from the original source. Scenario (1) I see legal issues with. But scenario (2)? Isn't Pinterest simply providing a link (ala a search engine)? Moreover, isn't this just how the internet works? Surely this has come up before yet I am having trouble finding a similar case.

JBiserkov 15y ago

http://500px.com/terms http://500px.com/terms I prefer the old ones though http://web.archive.org/web/20110619022738/http://500px.com/terms http://web.archive.org/web/20110619022738/http://500px.com/t...

billpatrianakos 15y ago

What we have here is manufactured outrage. Total non-story. I hope others don't start piling on now that this has been written. The real deal is that Pinterest is screwed either way. These terms sound scary but so long as they are enforced sanely there should be no problem. What do you expect them to do? Assume liability for users posting content they should not be posting? They might as well not exist. A lot of startups these days may as well not even try to get traction as long as bloggers keep getting their panties in a twist over every TOS they see. Pinterest provides a service for free that people seem to love. So long as no one is paying them and they haven't gone public they're damn smart to have these terms. If I ran Pinterest I wouldn't want to assume liability for some asshole who leaks a top secret photo on my site that I let him use for free and as long as I'm giving that service for free I'm going to make some cash out of my users. This is nowhere near evil. It's business. If someone doesn't like it they don't have to use it. Question: How do you get over writer's block? Answer: Start reading some terms of service or privacy policy docs from any popular online startup and manufacture some outrage over it. Truth is, if you read any TOS or privacy policy you're going to find something you can turn into a big deal most of the time. I've had it with the TOS/privacy policy outrage blogs.

lwat 15y ago
So your argument is that everyone has bad TOSes and therefore we should just ignore it?
- billpatrianakos 15y ago
  It's one thing to find something truly damning in a TOS and something else entirely to nitpick standard boilerplate legalese meant to protect companies from the very same people who nitpick the TOS in the first place. I know it's cool to be contrarian around here but give me a break. Look at this like a human, not a robot, and you'll see this is a mountain made out of a mole hill. Not saying you in particular are looking at this like a robot, I was speaking in general there.
  - lwat 15y ago

kfcm 15y ago

Just opening the door for business casual G-men [video]: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382781/business-casual-g-men http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382781/business-casual...

yonasb 15y ago

One phrase comes to mind after reading this: "so what." It's not about what the terms say, it's about how they're enforced. I don't see any users getting sued, just a bunch of stories on how you could potentially get sued.

danboarder 15y ago

Pinterest is more like a visual social bookmarking service than a blog. When people save bookmarks or share links on delicious or reddit or even twitter, of course they don't claim ownership of that content, it's just a bookmark. Similarly, with Pintrest people are saving a visual bookmark of something they saw that was interesting out on the web or on other social streams, tumblr, etc. I think a lot of people are missing the point here.

otterley 15y ago

I am an attorney (and as far as I can tell, the author is not one, so take his "analysis" with a pillar of salt). This is not legal advice though. With respect to the following paragraph: "So, if you snap an awesome photograph, upload it to your blog, and someone pins it, that person is either (1) claiming exclusive ownership of it; or (2) giving Pinterest your consent to reproduce it (and you just thought you were being flattered)." Actually, no. You can't transfer a right you don't have. All rights to a work are vested in the author of a protected work; only the author can consent to any of the activities protected by copyright. It's just like selling a house you don't own. First, you're committing fraud if you falsely represent that you have the right to sell it; and second, the actual owner isn't bound by anything you have done (the deed doesn't go to the putative buyer).

1point2 15y ago
And there in lies the problem with TOS (or is the problem with the law?) if one needs to be an attorney to understand them, what hope is there for the ordinary folk - just saying. No wonder people just click through.
raimondious 15y ago
This is my issue with the article. If your rights as content creator are violated by Pinterest, then that's between you and Pinterest. If Pinterest were to say "but user 4023 said it was ours to use!" my reaction would be "so what?"

fotoblur 15y ago

Pinterest and Tumblr are by far the worse offenders when it comes to sharing content from other providers as its not 100% clear, or sometimes elusive, on how visitor can view the original content. Its as if these sites are cutting content providers out of the loop which is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. They are essentially going to injure the entire ecosystem of sharing if they keep up with these practices (http://www.sv411.com/index.php/2012/02/pinterest-gets-caught-changing-user-links-for-extra-income/ http://www.sv411.com/index.php/2012/02/pinterest-gets-caught...). What's worse is that these shady sharing practices have begun to support a broader ecosystem of image finding scavengers such as http://www.whattopin.com http://www.whattopin.com (see below). Here is a support ticket we received today at Fotoblur which illustrates the problems we are seeing (a bit of broken English but you get the picture): "I am user the http://www.fotoblur.com/portfolio/agnieszkabalut?p=1&id=370425 http://www.fotoblur.com/portfolio/agnieszkabalut?p=1&id=... Another user Elinka used my photo art- senza titolo2 by Agnieszka Balut....... (via Elinka) in the web-site http://www.whattopin.com/topic/photography/?id=283634 http://www.whattopin.com/topic/photography/?id=283634 - Printerest (commercial use) and in the http://elinka.tumblr.com/post/18734723798/senza-titolo2-by-agnieszka-balut http://elinka.tumblr.com/post/18734723798/senza-titolo2-by-a... without my permission. All my images are protected by Copyright (reproduction and printing). All images on these are the exclusive property of Agnieszka Balut and protected by the Copyright . Therefore prohibited the publication and reproduction without written permission from Agnieszka Balut. Any violation will be prosecuted." As you can see, this type of sharing confuses people. We usually explain "fair use" to them but they really don't care. They feel they have rights and they want action taken. I can fully understand why Flickr blocked Pinterest if they have been getting the complaints such as we've seen. In the end the burden falls on the image owner and what ends up happening is they have to chase down every site owner whose members improperly post their content. They then lose faith in participating at all because of their inability to control their content.

EGreg 15y ago

This is the problem with importing PUBLIC CONTENT YOU FIND ON THE INTERNET into a website. Not uploading from your computer, or importing from your own account somewhere on another site. If the website actually makes a copy of the media (picture, etc.) and stores it on their servers, they should hope that the DMCA still considers them a safe harbor. I think their best bet is to store the images only as a cache, and not as a permanent import. If the site owner decides to take down the original, then the cache should disappear soon thereafter.

treelovinhippie 15y ago

I was under the assumption that all social-based sites/companies follow the same policy, not so they can resell user content, but so they can eventually go through an acquisition without facing a class action lawsuit from its users who would demand a % of the sale. e.g. Geocities.

npsimons 15y ago

I think many are dismissing this as "standard TOS/EULA legalese" and missing the point. Let's consider a scenario: let's say you post some photos online, and license them under the CC-By-SA license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). Then someone pins the photos you took to Pinterest. Next, Pinterest sells the photos you took, then catches someone copying or modifying the photos you took and sues them for copyright. To top it all off, Pinterest doesn't even give you attribution. This is exactly the sort of thing that CC and GPL were created to combat: ruining someone's life through the legal system based on abuse of the copyright system. You want to sue someone over copyright violations of information you have copyright on? Fine. You want to sell something licensed under CC-By-SA? Fine. But you better be ready to comply to the license and allow whoever you give those works to the right to copy, sell and modify those works. I highly doubt Pinterest is prepared for this, and their TOS is overreaching.