Pinranker: Your Spamming Gateway

Automated copyright infringement for profit

Pinranker is a software that allows you to spam the pinning daylights out of Pinterest. Simply highlight a radio button to grab random images from Google, Yahoo, Flickr and even Youtube videos based on the search query of your choice, and Pinranker will automate pins, repins, and embed your Amazon affiliate code (not sure why, since Pinterest is stripping them off).

Copyright infringement is now automated via spambots, thanks to Pinterest. Oh, what a beautiful thing you've "created," Ben Silbermann.

Pinterest Can Afford Higher Rent

According to Business Insider, Pinterest has moved from Palo Alto to San Francisco, 808 Brannan Street.

Their swanky new digs are at the "Fashion Center" - a 2-story building from the 30's with big windows.


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Pressuring Pinterest & Pinners

Everyone who has raised a child knows how difficult it is to be heard by those little ones when they have decided that they just don't want to hear.

How can artists get pinners' attention? Words will fall on deaf ears, therefore, all we have left are actions. They do, after all, speak louder than words.

Public relations:
(1) Google "pinterest copyright infringement" - click on "more search tools" on the left menu and select "last 24 hours" or "last week" and make sure that the anti-Pinterest voice is one of the first in the comment sections of articles about Pinterest. Enlighten the audience on what pinners seem to understand the least: how Pinterest "publicity" doesn't help every artist's business model, that it doesn't help yours, and that it's not their right to make the assumption that artists seek fame above all, and saddle us with endless DMCAs take downs.

(2) Log in to your Pinterest account, and repin copyright warning images from Pin Hammer's pin boards

If you have your own website:
As instructed in this post Educate Pinners With .htaccess, hijack pin requests to substitute an image containing a stern copyright warning.

If copyright has occurred, you have some options:
(1) Be vigilant with your content and serve as many DMCA notices as necessary, emailing copyright@pinterest.com, not the automated form on Pinterest's website. The blank frames where images use to be will linger and serve as a reminder that infringement has occurred and that there are artists that do not welcome it.

(2) Log in to your Pinterest account and post some version of the below in the infringing pin's comment section:

You have posted my image without permission. By taking away my lawful right to distribute this image and handing this right to Pinterest, you are making it more difficult for me to earn money from my work. You are helping Pinterest make money from my work instead of me. Please help artists continue to be able to derive an income from self-publishing on the internet by not pining their work. I'd rather you remove the image, but if you really want to keep it on Pinterest, my licensing rate for every posting/re-pinning on a Pinterest pinboard is $250.00/yr. Again, I would prefer if you remove the image because Pinterest has no hotlink protection.

To quote a commenter on Pinterest announces new terms of service & that private boards are coming soon:

Despite first necessary changes to protect the Pinterest founder from major lawsuits the conflict with copyright persists. The majority of pinboard owners still do not and will not care about copyright. Also Pinterest can trust that the majority of copyright owners will not take the effort to constantly check illegal pins. From my point of view Pinterest tries to get away with a “dirty deal” between them and their users (silent agreement to tolerate uncounted copyright infringement)as cheap as possible. Only if and when copyright owners (can) protest they will finally do something. I do not think that this is a basis for an ethical business conduct.

WE NEED TO KEEP THE PROTEST ALIVE. EVERY DAY.

Music Lessons

The music industry was brought to its knees by copyright infringement. They have been dealing with willful ignorance of copyright laws, and the impoverishment of many musicians for years; we all know the battle is quite lost.

Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered, by David Lowery, is a long article, but it is an important read for all artists.

Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.

Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!

The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.

[...] “small” personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly “love”.

[...]Rather than using our morality and principles to guide us through technological change, there are those asking us to change our morality and principles to fit the technological change–if a machine can do something, it ought to be done. [...] [Copyright] has worked very well for fans and artists. Now we are being asked to undo this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate artists but simply because it is technologically possible for corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their permission on a massive scale and globally.

What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles to allow the equivalent of looting.

From the comments:

The message is: “Content creators, get in line to give your work away for the pleasure of possibly earning a bit of anonymous attention somewhere out over the inter-waves.”

The article is brimming with gems. A convincing point is made that people don't mind paying corporations for copyright-infringement platforms, hardware, and infrastructure, but they'd rather not pay the artists. Artists enforcing their copyrights are "copyright trolls" and "extortionists."

Please share this link:

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

Post it on Facebook, forums, add comments about Pinterest to the article's discussion, raise awareness. Everyone should read it - the article, and the abundant comments below it.


The music industry is already on its knees.
We're next.

Nordstrom, That's The Right Idea!

Perfectly legitimate, and cool for everyone.

Nordstrom's has a Pinterest page! And why not. They're pinning pictures from a catalog for whom they own the rights, they are "authentic" to what they are selling, and they're displaying attractive, attainable, easy-to-find merchandise that can be repinned without losing sleep over potential copyright infringement lawsuits. You can pin a whole fantasy wardrobe, buy it, and enjoy wearing it.

That's a way better model than the current orgy of copyright infringement. Does Nordstrom's commercial presence diminish Pinterest? One might argue that it does not, since the page has, at the time the screenshot was taken, a healthy ~19,000 followers. People like it!

A Spammer's View of "Pin Hags"

The image pinners wish to project.



Busted.

How spammers view pinners (excerpts from Black Hat World Forum):

Don't get these glamorous pictures fool you, Pinterest is mostly older, fat ass women spending all their time on the internet, lazily clicking on pictures to pin them and getting their egos stroked for their amazing taste.

They're dreaming about high heels and castles but trust me, what I make money on is the peddling of donuts and limited edition Pop Tarts. [...]

WHAT SELLS

Thomas Kinkade crap

Amazon grocery products with quality photos: donuts [...], fruit and nuts [...], gift baskets [...], chocolate & candies are super hot [...], chocolates with really nice pictures [...], shit like these cupcakes sell like mad [...], candy apples [...], cute shit with jelly beans [...], 12-flavor gummy bears [...] - you get the idea.

Trendy shit like decorating items with seashells that you can put in their own folder. Example: [...]

ANY EFFING ANYTHING WITH HEARTS. Just search Amazon with the "heart" keyword in Home & Garden. They have heart-shaped measuring cups that no pinning hag will want to be caught without. You could fill up an entire fake account with heart junk merchandise. [...]

Niche stuff targeting the gullible and more likely to follow the links, like a folder of merchandise with Jesus or the Virgin Mary.

Bacon products, they'll pretend it's for their husbands but it's really for them [...]. I tried the bacon thing as a joke, now I'm laughing all the way to the bank.

AVOID

Dresses (overdone, and pinners won't fit in them anyway)

Electronics (reading instruction manuals is intimidating)

Jewelry (looks spammy)

Diets. These gals love to eat more than they love to diet. Give them food instead. Easy food, none of that hard-work recipe business.

Craft stuff. They like to look at it, not do it.

Link to Google Trends

See the other websites that the pin hags visit?

1. yummytastyrecipes.com (FOOD)
2. helpwithweightloss.org (OPPOSITE OF FOOD)
3. onegoodthingbyjillee.com (FOOD)
4. sixsistersstuff.com (FOOD)
5. plainchicken.com (FOOD)
6. zhishuba.com (NO IDEA, CHINESE SITE, NOTHING LOADS. SITE PROBABLY EATEN)
7. chef-in-training.com (FOOD)
8. the-girl-who-ate-everything.com (FOOD)
9. realmomkitchen.com (FOOD)
10. iknowhair.com (HAIR - probably EATING IT)

Hacktivism vs. Consumerism

Let's be realistic
"Dumps" not likely to go viral on the Pinterest crowd

Hacktivism is the exploitation of the internet, through means that weren't necessarily intended, for the purpose of spreading a social message.

New Forms of Hacktivism suggests pinning pictures of Occupy protests, infographics about climate change, quotes from Malcolm X or Naomi Wolf, garbage dumps or even Walmart. "The first time I posted an image of two women kissing, I got a complaining comment from a woman who said her granddaughter used the site and she didn’t want her exposed to things like that. Expose!"

Pinner Hall of Shame?

Welcome to the rarefied atmosphere of obsessive pinning. Do these users really do have the right to upload, say, 40,000 images to Pinterest's servers? Can they show permission for every image? Are they protected against a lawsuit for registered works, carrying damages from $15,000 to $150,000 per image, plus attorney fees, and paying for Pinterest's lawyers in addition to those of the plaintiff? Is it worth it? The more images are uploaded, the greater the risk of getting sued, and the more likely the damages will be maximal as they are when willful infringement can be shown. What arguments, if any, can be made that the copyright infringement was not willful in the case of someone with 70,000 pins?


Jan Galbraith - 34397 pins


Joanne Giroux - 35841 pins


Marcy Rupp - 36458 pins


Valerie Thorpe - 38156 pins


Janessa VanOefellen - 38165 pins


Janie Lane - 38798 pins


Elaine Nasser - 39406 pins


Kathy Jackman Hutchison - 41409 pins


Kim Kiwi - 43652 pins
1% handbags


Lilly Styles - 44640 pins



CasaBella Interiors - 45834 pins
Disclaimer: "Pins are not our own property"


Monica Bourne - 50693 pins
"I'm an obsessive collector of inspirational and useful pictures [...]. And I compulsively organise everything."


Pascale De Groof - 55223 pins


Mayann Rizzo - 61503 pins
That's a lot of "being authentic" with other people's content.


Mary Beth Burrell - 78933 pins
Is there an image she doesn't like?


Christine Kysely - 80570 pins
"Visual Content on my Pinboards is owned and copyrighted by its respectful owners."
Why would a self-described artist and photographer infringe on the works of others to the tune of 80 thousand images, and admit it?


Lise Lemay - 80680 pins
Probably on the missing person list.


Teresa Powell - 82903 pins
There could be a few expensive lawsuits in those boards.


Luann Lang - 106740 pins
Please capture, drag away from the computer and air out in sunlight.




Pin Hammer - 23 pins

Quote Of The Day

What is Pinterest?

"It's a site made by a secret cabal of advertising executives to get women to advertise products and the overall consumer lifestyle to each other."

- reverendfrag4 on Reddit