Pinterest Gets Worse

Check out Pinterest's own blog in We're Testing Out A New Look. With Bing and Google putting the squeeze on Pinterest's original monopoly of image copyright infringement with their own large-image display in image search, Pinterest is cornered into up'ing the ante:

Pins are bigger and we’ve added more information related to pins, so it’s easier to find things you’re interested in. For example, on each pin, you’ll see pins from the same board, other boards this pin was pinned to, and a whole slew of related pins.

That's right. Pinterest is planning to display even larger images than before, and showing a bunch of other thumbnails to the side, make themselves more "sticky" to the visitors and decrease potential visitor leakage to the creator's websites.

Some Terrible, Terrible News.

You heard it here first. Pinterest's greatest "contribution" to the internet is to set off a tsunami of image theft from every direction, inspiring countless websites to join the fray of image vampires.

Google has now rolled out a new Image Search - as if the search engine giant was trying to "undercut" Pinterest in the highly popular image-theft business.

Try it yourself: got to Google Images, launch a search query, and click on any image.

You'll see that Google now displays a large version of that image WITHIN GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH. That's right; Google has no longer confines itself to the use of thumbnails. Why not, since the copyright-infringement trailblazer Pinterest remains to this day free of serious legal challenges?

Adding insult to injury, Google has neglected to provide an opt out mechanism for webmasters to block the display of large images.

And here we are again, in some bizarre situation where we have to take action if we want our copyright to be respected.

Google, if it chose to do so, would have the ability to give webmasters a disadvantage in search engine results should they decide to opt out of image theft. This is quite a sinister development.

For more: Plagiarism Today.

The issues of Google hotlinking larger images or encouraging others to misuse images aren’t going to subside.

Artist, Educate Yourself

Some blogger operating under the name "Girly Underwear" and referring to herself as a photographer has some great lessons to teach us all in her post How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Pinterest. Let's take a look at the best bits.

As someone who takes photos for a living, I don’t see Pinterest as a threat against my work. I am only concerned about two things: people taking credit for my work, and people making money off of my work.

Like the majority of people who are working tirelessly to fill Pinterest's servers with infringing third party content, and paid only in "likes" and "followers," our intrepid photographer needs a few rounds with a clue bat. She keeps confusing plagiarism (people taking credit for my work) with copyright infringement (people displaying things on various media platforms without permission of the creator), and fails to grasp that a financial motive is not a prerequisite for actionable infringement.

Should I have to pay for every photo that I enjoy looking at on the internet? That’s like saying anyone who heard “Call Me Maybe” on the radio should pay the artist.

If creatives harbor such gross misconceptions, is there any hope for the public at large to understand the rights of artists to make a living from their creative output, based on their ability to control its distribution, display, and mediatization? I'd venture to say that most people know that the radio stations pay royalties to broadcast "Call Me Maybe." I bet that even more people know that Pinterest doesn't pay a cent of royalties to the creators of the images it re-broadcasts without permission.

Keeping a virtual closet of products that I will never be able to afford is enough retail therapy for me, it makes me feel like I already own them.

This comment is a direct reminder of an earlier post, here on Creators Against Pinterest: An Image Is Worth More Than The Object It Represents. That simple admission reveals a much deeper truth, which is that, on the internet, images themselves are a commodity. Some content providers make more money from displaying the photographs of their art/craft than selling the actual product. Images are valuable. Images make money. Images make money without being licensed, without being printed. They make money from being displayed on the popular media that is the internet. Our blogger knows how much an image is worth: more than the object it represents. Yet, she fails to grasp the money concept, which is the transfer of "image wealth" from their creators in the the greedy hands of Pinterest through the tireless hoarding of its users.

My suggestion to photographers who do not want their photos passed around on the internet? Don’t put it there.

How often have we read this argument? If you don't want your purse to be snatched, keep it home. If you don't want your car radio stolen, take it with you every time you leave the car. If you don't want your home to be burgled, board your windows with plywood.

Consequently, I could see myself pinning (or infringing!) lots of photos but a landscape photographer will have a tough time selling me one of his prints [...]

It's very difficult for people to understand how very few of us make money from prints. It's not about the prints. It was never about the prints.

If we hope to educate the public to respect copyrights, we need to educate each other, first.

Let The Fancy Crush Pinterest

According to Slahsgear, Apple is courting The Fancy towards an acquisition. This is great news for artists and content providers, as The Fancy, another image hoarding platform, is unashamedly geared towards selling merchandise, and allows private boards.

Let's face it, the transparent commercialism of The Fancy makes it less likely to run afoul of copyright laws than Pinterest, who rejects "self-promotion" and encourages its users to upload other people's photographs and artwork to its servers.

It would be surprising if the Pinterest crowd were to migrate to The Fancy, as they are reputed to look abundantly, and buy scarcely. They can't afford the thing... but they can own the picture.

One can always hope.

It's Just Digital Hoarding

Etsy Loves Pinterest

Being pinned is a thrill for some.

People that sell things tend to find Pinterest useful. Maybe that's why Rakuten, the behemoth Japanese e-commerce company, invested millions in Pinterest. Maybe that's why Pinterest is conviently hosted on Amazon'z servers.

Etsy Shopkeepers appear to appreciate having their images pinned. In fact, they rave about the flattery and the exposure, responding to being pinned much in the way that pinners expect. Minor objections seem to center around pinners wanting to make the projects themselves rather than purchasing the items. There are, unfortunately, very few quantitative evaluations of actual Pinterest traffic and conversions from the Etsy shopkeepers.

The Print-On-Demand (POD) site 1x.com, after toying with the "pin it" button, has removed it. In the words of founder Ralf Stelander, "We have decided to remove the pinterest button, it generated very little traffic anyway."

One might guess Pinterest may not doing much for the POD business model.

Dear Artists,

Dear Artists,

We've grown up to your music, we've wept to your poetry, we visited places from which we saw your photographs, we crafted projects from your instructions, we've been inspired by your painting styles.

It's the digital age, and you're going to need to adapt. We're downloading your music and sharing it with friends and strangers on the internet. We're posting your writings on our blogs, because ideas are free. We're sharing your arts, crafts and photography on Pinterest and other platforms. We will give it all to Pinterest and Grokster to distribute and profit from because they conveniently put everything in one place, and for free.

How you're going to make a living from your creations is your problem, not ours. You're just going to find a way to adapt and make money without copyright protection. Art is meant to be shared, get on with the program. If you can't figure out how to make a living with everyone distributing your content where they bloody well please, suck it up and go wait on tables.

Once again, thank you for the inspiration and making the world a more beautiful place. We're looking forward to complimenting you by handing off your work to Ben Silbermann, making him rich rather than you, but especially getting kudos for our refined style from our "followers." Remember, it's publicity! You should be grateful.

Genuinely appreciating artists as always,

The Pinners

This, above, is the message that pinners are sending artists/creators. They really do hate the artists as much as they love their art.

Quoting a comment from Julie Meyers Pron's blog Pinterest: Educate Your Users About Content Theft, "I haven't contacted any of the users because I know from past experience the hateful reaction you get when you ask people not to break copyright & reprint your recipe."

No, It's NOT Publicity

No, It's NOT Publicity

Available here through Creative Commons.

Love the Art, Hate the Artist

Love the Art, Hate the Artist

Available here through Creative Commons.

The Future Of Images On The Internet

Today, the spotlight is on you.

What is your principal source of revenue arising from the display of your art on the internet?

As an artist/photographer/creator, what measures are you considering taking in the short term to minimize copyright infringement?

What measures are you considering in the longer term?

What do you predict will be the ultimate effect of the erosion of image copyright on the internet?

Are there parallels to be made with the music industry?

Image Copyright Is A Lesser Copyright

Plagiarism of the written word is sometimes taken more seriously
than image plagiarism.

I think photographers, artists, and other intellectual property copyright owners need to catch up with this trend as well. Whether for good or ill, the internet has become a place for sharing and the free exchange of ideas. [...]With sites like Pinterest, many artists and photographers and other relatively unknown sites are getting great exposure. And isn't that the goal of an artist--to have his or her work appreciated and admired?

- "Cocopreme" in How To Use Pinterest Legally

Obviously there is a line and some people do cross it. I've had my articles copied word for word on other sites before and had to report it.

- "Cocopreme" in How To Use Pinterest Legally

I think writers need to catch up with this trend as well. Whether for good or ill, the internet has become a place for sharing and the free exchange of ideas. With sites like Tumblr, many writers and other relatively unknown sites are getting great exposure. And isn't that the goal of a writer--to have his or her work appreciated and admired?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and outright copying is just sharing free ideas.

What appears like a reasonable opinion about images sounds outrageous when applied to the written word, doesn't it?

The Image Is The Product

"An Image Is Worth More Than The Object It Represents"

Welcome to the digital age.

Many pinners have convinced themselves that artists ought to be eternally grateful for the publicity. They haven't noticed how few artists are posting their own content for their own publicity on Pinterest. When pressed, they'll argue that posting a digital representation of an artwork, a craft project, or a landscape photograph, cannot possibly hurt the sales of that product, on the contrary!

Not to single out pinners, many attorneys, photographers, writers and visual artists themselves still have a view that the only avenues for profiting from one's artwork is to sell the work itself, or its reproduction on less expensive media ranging from coffee mugs, calendars, giclee prints and t-shirts, or by licensing rights to the ever-shrinking print media, or internet news behemoths like CNN.

It is often thought that multiplying the images of the object on the internet in no way interferes with the sales of the object, so why should artists complain? The more the object is seen, the greater the likelihood that it will be purchased by someone. Pinners justify themselves thinking that they wouldn't have bought licensing rights to the image under any circumstance, such that the artist isn't losing any licensing income. They are, after all, only looking.

In the digital age, the image of the object has become the product.

The image is consumed through the viewing of it.

Self-publishing artists can profit from the distribution of their images for viewing on their own websites, supported by advertising sponsorship. The images can be displayed on their own as sources of inspiration, or simple viewing delight. They can be essential decoration to how-to articles. They can support ideas and help with brand recognition. None of these strategies to profit from one's images involves sales of physical objects of any kind.

The artist's ability to profit from self-publishing is eroded when pinners contribute to the building of a large, central marketplace of image consumption. Pinterest, as a central viewing marketplace is not only populated by the artist's own images (forcing the artist to compete against his/herself), but it also conveniently features the added bonus of the best work of many other artists.

In the aggregate, the consumers of digital images will be satisfying their viewing needs in the new, more convenient central marketplace, stripped of intellectually-demanding accompanying text, and have no incentive at all to consume images in their dispersed and non-uniform original sources.

If there is any doubt that it is the image itself that is consumed, kindly refer to this article: Pinner Hall of Shame?