Copyright Infringement Becomes Too Burdensome

In Cindy Schnackel's RedBubble blog entry Big Changes, the artist explains how rampant copyright infringement is affecting the way she publishes her work on the internet:

One of the biggest changes[...] is to cease selling many, (or any), reprints on Red Bubble.

[...]Changes to search engines give away images instead of drive traffic to us now. Social and sharing sites have become infringement cesspools. Scraper sites link our work to porn and ads and hide behind secretive web hosts.

How has Pinterest and search engines displaying full-size images instead of just thumbnails affected the way you publish your work on the internet?

Article Worth Pointing Out

The Examiner.com's Eric George, in Long, Hot and Expensive Summer writes:

The firing of a newspaper blogger for informing the general public that Pinterest is not copyright infringement. Well, the paper was about to get sued into oblivion because some people on Pinterest used that as a defense in their cases and LOST.

The bottom line is it is going to be a very long and very hot and very expensive summer for infringers and the providers who have dumped everything on the users. It may not happen this year if things are appealed but the ship is sinking and the rats are running to get off and move the infringing materials to other companies they buy overseas. I hope the new system coming in allows them to be sued even if they do that.

Regrettably, no sources are given or names mentioned. I can't ascribe a comfortable level of credibility to the article but I thought I'd share anyway!

Outrage of the month

In Pinterest photos: Can they be used without copyright infringement?, author "bevcohen" writes:

What I find very confusing is why Pinterest users are allowed to pin pictures from all over the internet without regard for their rights to use those pictures. Public domain or not, pictures are continually being pinned.

And pictures on Pinterest can be re-pinned. If that’s the case, it seems reasonable that we should be able to use those pictures on posts at Bubblews or anywhere else.

So instead of searching the internet for public domain pictures that we can use without copyright infringement, Pinterest might be a great one-stop photo shopping site. Any thoughts?

Any thought? Yes, disturbing thoughts. As most of us creatives have feared when becoming aware of the existence of Pinterest, the public's perception of an image posted on Pinterest is that this image is fair game for them to use on whatever website they feel like.

Legal Issue Settled?

In a blog post by Mydesert.com, Maureen Gilmer re-assures her readers that "pinning pictures is not copyright infringement." Now we know?

No, pinning pictures is not copyright infringement, but the jury is still out about whether or not it’s a threat to artists and photographers. Many are using watermarks on their pictures to emphasize it’s copyrighted within the Pinterest system.

Ironically, the author's images on the blog have buttons labelled "PURCHASE IMAGE" with a shopping cart icon. I am not kidding. You can't make this stuff up. I repeat: she is trying to sell rights to the images she posted on the blog! Not only that, but she claims with obvious pride that the images are pinned all over Pinterest already!

Who will purchase her images, when, as indicated in the images' caption, they are pinned all over Pinterest? I can just hotlink them from Pinterest with the EMBED code, then Maureen can sue to original pinner, and not me. Besides, it's not copyright infringement, right?

How can she say that "the jury is still out about whether or not it’s a threat to artists and photographers" when she should have the perfect vantage point to know that it is a threat to her selling rights to her photos?

I hate to be mean, but that was one of the most ignorant things I've ever read.

Continued Harassment of Artists by Pinterest

In its valiant and tireless attempts to make it increasingly difficult for creatives to protect their intellectual property, Pinterest now forces us to become a member of their copyright infringement facilitating platform.... for the privilege of checking if images have been pinned from our websites.

We artists are their bread and butter; some of us are happy to let Pinterest steal their work and exploit it commercially in exchange for traffic tidbits of dubious worth, and others are very unhappy about having their livelihoods, which is protected under current laws, grabbed from them.

The very least they could do is to make it easy. But no. Pinterest wants to make it as difficult for artists as they possibly can, while sending their members letters "you have done nothing wrong, happy pinning" as their coddling version of copyright enforcement.

Absolute MUST-READ

Photographer Tara Bradford relates a story, in This photo is not free: Nikken EU & copyright infringement, where a company infringed on her copyright for commercial and promotional endeavors, and incredibly, is refusing to pay her a very reasonable, non-punitive fee of $535.00 for the photo, because, their spokesperson claims, THEY TOOK THE PICTURE FROM PINTEREST and Tara should suck it up. The company is even refusing to apologize.

This is absolutely outrageous.

According to Tara,

[The spokesperson's] argument blamed the so-called "original pinner," insisting that if other people grabbed the photo, Nikken EU could too. She claimed to be "unaware of any copyright restrictions related to the use of this photo..." Further, she advised that Nikken EU "strongly deny any copyright infringement and recommend that you contact the person who first posted the photo and availed it to all Pinterest users."

Photographer Against Pinterest

In About Pinterest: An open letter to my readers, photographer Tara Bradford writes:

[...] I don't want even one of my photos on Pinterest.[...]

I am trying to prevent my original work from losing its value by being pinned (and uncredited) numerous times on multiple Pinterest boards, amidst groupings of dubious quality and origin. Pinterest is a big company with massive funding and I am one small business owner, simply trying to protect my livelihood. I receive no benefit whatsoever from my photography appearing on Pinterest.

For other posts from Tara about Pinterest, read:

Picture This, Pinterest

Has It Come To This?

The continuing saga of keeping photos off Pinterest - this article mentions a pinner that knowingly posts Tara's photographs knowing full well this is against her will.

Still No Self-Promotion

Pinterest's early TOS and user etiquette had some firm language warning against "self-promotion" - setting the tone of the "pinned" images never to belong to the pinners. If a pinner can only "promote" other people's images, by definition they do own the copyright to them.

Pinterest has a new feature where they "verify" your website, which on the surface sounds like it could be a way to legitimize and set paramaters for self-promotion and posting one's own images.

Accounts with a verified website have confirmed ownership of their website using our automatic verification process. Website verification establishes the link between a website and a Pinterest account.

These accounts are marked with a checkmark which displays next to their website on their profile page and below their name in search results.

However, this seem not to be the case at all: In Do NOT to verify your website in Pinterest - Read my story. the below was reported:

This was a big mistake: very short time after I verified my website in Pinterest, my account got deactivated. There was no warning from Pinterest and no specific reason.

They've just suddenly decided that I was a spammer. I believe that they've noticed that most of my pins are linked to my website and they didn't like it so they kicked me out.

But here is the big issue: Because of the association between my website and my account - my website got banned from Pinterest as well.

Pinterest News Roundup

A lively discussion on the Etsy forum, spanning at least 25 pages in two days, was spurred by the following opening post by an Etsy seller, after receiving a "strike":

What the heck??? I pinned an image from a blog I follow. It was not the person's website. How on earth would I have known that the person didn't want their stuff pinned? This really stinks.... I don't care about the pin, I care about getting cyber-slapped for something that Pinterest encourages - PINNING!!!

Further down in the thread, she write:

If she didn't want me to pin the image at all, why didn't she just send me a message thru Pinterest right then and there and tell me to delete the pin???

...which is a fairly typical demand for courtesy from copyright infringers that lack the courtesy of asking for permission, and do not realize how much time they are costing content creators in chasing their content.

It is interesting to note that many pinners in that thread report having had "strikes" and some pins deleted. Etsy pinners are by no means a random sample, but if so many pinners have pins removed, one might be led to believe that Pinterest handles MASSIVE amounts of DMCA take-downs.

Photog Gets Into Nasty Tussle With Radio Station Over Copyright Infringement outlines a case where a photograph was used without permission, and is followed by some fascinating comments.

In Why can't we use Google images on our website?, a webmaster requests the help of a consumer advocate after receiving a demand from Getty Images. The comment section is very lively here, too.

While not about images, AP wins big: Why a court said clipping content is not fair use reports on a recent judgement imposing fair use limits on the written word, in this case, snippets from news articles.

I Hate Pinterest In March, Too!

Melanie who absolutely loves whiskey has it in for Pinterest:

I fucking hate Pinterest more than a lot of things. I hate Pinterest more than I hate spiders, birds and bad Asian drivers. Pinterest is absolutely RUINING girls lives on the regular and they have no fucking clue why they can't get a boyfriend. I have an idea. Maybe it's because you link your Pinterest to your Facebook and everyone can see how fucking batshit nuts you are.

Confessions of a Curvy Girl blames Pinterest for craft projects that don't turn out as well as they do on the picture. It's not the only site that tackles "Pinterest Fails" but I've largely ignored these since they don't add much to the conversation other than the fact that all these people misconstrue the source of the images as "Pinterest."

Lindsay Markin of The Swim Diva writes:

I don't get Pinterest. I have no idea why someone would want to advertise how much "stuff" they are lusting after. [...] When I want something I tell myself "get it, or get over it".

[...]Nobody else cares what I like, nor do I feel the need to get the approval through other people that what I like is also liked by others.

[...]Pinterest discourages creativity and encourages plagiarism. Instead of actually doing things, it is a self-satisfying act to virtually "pin it" as if one has accomplished something.

Now We Know Who Trolled Who

Back in August, Creators Against Pinterest published Will The Real Troll Please Stand Up, an account of what can happen to content creators that attempt to protect their intellectual property through the legal channels, with parallels to potential lawsuits against pinners. This particular story concerned poet Linda Ellis whose poem The Dash was infringed upon by one April Brown, who found oil for her fire on the website extortionletterinfo.com, operated by Matthew Chan. The website, and affiliate websites, posted derogatory, "photoshopped" pictures of Ellis and devoted an entire subforum to deride and mock her.

A Georgia Judge has decided that the real troll was Matthew Chan and imposed a restraining order as follows:

The Respondent has knowingly and willfully violated O.C.G.A. §§ 16-5-90 et seq. and placed the Petitioner in reasonable fear for the Petitioner’s safety, because Respondent contacted the Petitioner (and urged others to contact Petitioner) and posted personal information of the Petitioner for the purpose of harassing and intimidating Petitioner (1.) As the owner and operator of the site, Respondent has the ability to remove posts in his capacity as the moderator. However, Respondent chose not to remove posts that were personally directed at Ms. Ellis and would cause a reasonable person to fear for her safety. Because the Respondent’s course of conduct was directed at Ms. Ellis through the posted messages and information relating to Ms. Ellis, and the conduct was intended (and in fact did) create fear and intimidation of the Petitioner, Respondent is hereby ORDERED to remove all posts relating to Ms. Ellis.

According to Linda Ellis' blog, Chan

boasted about driving around near my subdivision in a forum with a photo of my home and my address. He posted threats about he and others driving around my neighborhood with video cameras, threats that I was “dead,” threats that he was speaking with people who want to “put me in the ground.” He posted my personal information and records. He called my employee’s home. He posted videos in which he yelled obscenities directed toward me, loudly screaming: “Linda, you’re a piece of __it!” adding that I “won’t understand anything but BRUTE FORCE!”

Following the judgment, Chan has cleaned up the forum of everything Linda Ellis and seems to have reduced himself to mere veiled insider innuendos.

Perhaps, just like we have "innocent infringers," we have "innocent stalkers." In a spectacular example of not-knowing-when-to-let-go, April Brown responded to the judgment with a press release stauchly defending Chan's actions.

Some Do Get It

Janice Heppenstall writes, in Why I Don't Want My Images On Pinterest:

Effectively, then, if I ‘pin’ your images, I am giving away rights that are simply not mine to give, and that you will not be able to get back, and I am very worried about having done this. Equally, if you ‘pin’ mine, you’re effectively converting my ‘All Rights Reserved’ Copyright Notice into a Creative Commons Licence. To make it absolutely clear: it’s not the sharing of my work that bothers me, provided this is done with my permission and with appropriate copyright statements attached; it is the nature of the contract that anyone who posts images on Pinterest are making with that company in respect of my work that is my cause for concern. And this same concern is why I’ve now deleted the pinboards I had created.

I recommend that you read the article and the discussion below for its crystal clarity and the gentleness of the author. A detour to view her beautiful photographs and embroidery projects would be a worthwhile use of anyone's time.

In Reposting The Etiquette Of Attribution, calligraphist seanwes writes:

Does linking to the creator or tagging/attributing them automatically give me right to use their image?

No. Never assume this. [...] It doesn’t matter if it is attributed or unattributed. [...] Linking to the author does not give you a free pass to use their work.