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Could Affiliate Links Kill Pinterest?
- jakeludington 14y agoThe primary argument being that altering links might be construed as a a modification of material hosted on the service.
- fennecfoxen 14y agoI would suspect that a judge would be eminently willing to hear an argument that such a modification isn't really substantial and need not indicate the sort of editorial control that the law is considering when talking about who qualifies for various protections. It's far from clear that s/&refererId=.*//g exposes them to additional liability.
- FireBeyond 14y agoAgreed. Especially not when algorithmically managed. It is in no way comparable to a curated service / site. The author refuses to admit any bias in their position, too (that they make money in and around the world of affiliate marketing).
- jakeludington 14y agoActually, altering the link can alter the destination because in many cases the page presented to someone who entered via an affiliate link is different than the page presented when someone enters with a "naked" link. So if safe harbor is meant to protect a provider who doesn't make any changes to user generated content, then changing the link structure can in fact change the intent of the user.
- duskwuff 14y agoThe analysis of the DMCA Safe Harbor status in this article is incorrect. Subsection (a) -- "Transitory Digital Network Communications" -- is just one of four distinct ways in which a service provider can qualify for Safe Harbor status. (The author is correct only in that it doesn't apply to Pinterest.) Of the three others, the most relevant for Pinterest is subsection (c), "Information Residing on Systems or Networks At Direction of Users". In any case, links are not copyrightable works, so the fact that Pinterest is modifying them to alter or remove affiliate tags is most likely irrelevant. Read the whole thing for details: https://images.chillingeffects.org/512.html https://images.chillingeffects.org/512.html
- jakeludington 14y agoA link doesn't need to be a copyrightable work for the "material" posted by a user to be considered altered. What matters is how a court defines "material" and whether or not the court would define that "material" as modified by the service provider or not.
- codexon 14y agoThis was written by an affiliate marketing website.
- apgwoz 14y agoFor some reason, it seems likely to me that they are doing this so that they can eventually add their own partner/affiliate tracking. It could be the only real viable model for them.
- draggnar 14y agoIt seems reasonable. As long as the quality on the site is not dropping what is the problem with affiliate links?
- duskwuff 14y agoOne word: Spam.
- jakeludington 14y agoPinterest would be a even greater risk if they were to apply their own affiliate links to other people's copyrighted content. By putting a monetization model on other people's content, they would instantly lose any possibility of making a fair use claim.
- apgwoz 14y agoCouldn't they get around any problems by providing a way in which you could download and "recover" the original links?