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The front page of Pinterest looks like a Ladies Home Journal exploded. I'd venture to say that 90% of the content is third party content used without permission

The front page of Pinterest looks like a Ladies Home Journal exploded. I'd venture to say that 90% of the content is third party content used without permission. The only saving grace is that most of it is commercial images from ezines and retailers who will benefit from the traffic and so have no incentive to sue. But eventually it seems like there will be repercussions. On the other hand, when a sizable population of middle-aged women become the pirates, maybe our elected officials will be less inclined to set the dogs on them. Could Pinterest be a watershed moment in the copyright wars?

itssynecdoche 15y ago
The content on Pinterest almost always leads you back to the source site. I doubt that comes under pirating. Or am I missing something?
- dminor 15y ago
  Crediting the source doesn't mean it automatically falls under fair use. Pinterest's ToS state that you cannot pin material if you don't have copyright permission. Of course, this is probably a large percentage of what gets pinned.
- wmf 15y ago
  The "almost always" part is a bit of a problem. Why does Pinterest allow people to remove attribution? If Pinterest cares about respecting copyright, the simplest step would be to preserve attribution (and on a practical note, the resulting referer logs would notify image creators that their stuff is being pinned).
- sp332 15y ago
  You're not allowed to redistribute copyrighted material without a license. That is the entire point of copyright. And most of the content of the site is directly infringing.
achompas 15y ago
I'd venture to say that 90% of the content is third party content used without permission. The only saving grace is that most of it is commercial images from ezines and retailers who will benefit from the traffic and so have no incentive to sue. YouTube was 90% third-party content when it started out, and companies had a MUCH larger incentive to sue. YT made out fine, so I wonder if those repercussions will affect Pinterest in any way.
Androsynth 15y ago
middle aged? You may be thinking of zynga. Pinterest appeals to the 18-35 female demo
- vannevar 15y ago
  True, but middle aged women are orders of magnitude more likely to use Pinterest than say, Bittorrent or Megaupload.

itssynecdoche 15y ago

The content on Pinterest almost always leads you back to the source site. I doubt that comes under pirating. Or am I missing something?

dminor 15y ago
Crediting the source doesn't mean it automatically falls under fair use. Pinterest's ToS state that you cannot pin material if you don't have copyright permission. Of course, this is probably a large percentage of what gets pinned.
wmf 15y ago
The "almost always" part is a bit of a problem. Why does Pinterest allow people to remove attribution? If Pinterest cares about respecting copyright, the simplest step would be to preserve attribution (and on a practical note, the resulting referer logs would notify image creators that their stuff is being pinned).
sp332 15y ago
You're not allowed to redistribute copyrighted material without a license. That is the entire point of copyright. And most of the content of the site is directly infringing.

achompas 15y ago

I'd venture to say that 90% of the content is third party content used without permission. The only saving grace is that most of it is commercial images from ezines and retailers who will benefit from the traffic and so have no incentive to sue. YouTube was 90% third-party content when it started out, and companies had a MUCH larger incentive to sue. YT made out fine, so I wonder if those repercussions will affect Pinterest in any way.

Androsynth 15y ago

middle aged? You may be thinking of zynga. Pinterest appeals to the 18-35 female demo

vannevar 15y ago
True, but middle aged women are orders of magnitude more likely to use Pinterest than say, Bittorrent or Megaupload.