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.