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.

Aiding Copyright Infringement

According to Tim Hull of Courthouse News Service in: No Reprieve for isoHunt in Copyright-Aiding Suit, the 9th Circuit Court ruled this week that the owner of the popular BitTorrent search engine isoHunt.com is liable for contributory copyright infringement.

The owner of isoHunt.com had appealed a ruling from a lawsuit filed in 2006 by several major motion picture companies, and has now lost.

This is a good sign that litigation against Pinterest could result in a victory for the plaintiffs, since, in my opinion, the Pinterest case is even more clear-cut than in the case of isoHunt.com - inasmuch as they are patient with the slow turning of the wheels of Justice.

I hate Pinterest February Roundup

Danny McMurray's "I Won't Be Caught Dead On Pinterest Until Someone Turns My Corpse Into Candle Holders is an aboslute must-read! Tantalizing extracts below:

The first [reason] is that the majority of Pinterest users are women and the second is that the majority of pins are about, as follows: diet/exercise, makeup/clothes, crafting, “inspiration” for when you fall off the wagon, weddings, and home decor.

[...]

Let’s take a step back to the end of the 18th century and check in with Mary Wollstonecraft. In Chapter Four of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, she makes the persuasive argument that women and men are equally capable of reason and intelligence. Pause for a second while you’re out voting, and owning property, and wearing pants and consider that this was a revolutionary concept at the time: people- — both men and women — believed that the female brain was not wired for higher thought. Wollstonecraft suggests that the reason this appears to be the case is because women are improperly educated, that “understanding, strictly speaking, has been denied to [them]” through the forced acquisition of trivial skills like needlepoint, painting, and ornamentation in lieu of cultivating the ability to think.

From Why I Hate Pinterest and Social Media

I may just be one of a very few women who do not obsess over the internet phenomenon that is Pinterest. In fact I avoid the thing like the plague. Oh yeah, I looked at it. Then I started feeling unbelievably guilty.

Free-spirited folkster Rebecca Lynn Forehand writes, in Why I Hate Pinterest:

I don’t need MORE ideas, I need more focus on the ideas I already have.

In How Pinterest Made Me Feel Like A Bad Parent, Audra O'Connell writes:

I hate Pinterest. I hate what it’s done to mommy hood and what it’s done to the psyche of women around the world. Pinterest has helped Mommyguilt reach levels not possible before. Why? Because it shows us what we’re NOT doing, or what we think we SHOULD be doing or what we CAN’T do.

Artist Nixes Pinterest

In Why my art will only be found here, romance novel cover artist Patricia Schmitt a.k.a. Pickyme. writes:

So from now on I will only be posting my art on my web site. I will link to my work on FB and Twitter, but will not be uploading to any social media site again. I just want to know where my art is and make sure that others will not profit off of my work.

I get a warm fuzzy feeling when an artist realizes the importance of distributing one's artwork in making a living.



Recommended reading on Pinterest in the March issue of Arizona Attorney: Pinterest and User-Generated Content: Website Liability for Copyright Infringement.

Listed are six separate and exclusive rights of copyright owners, with the 4 below applying to image producers:

• copy or reproduce the work;
• distribute the work;
• display the work;
• make derivative works from the work

It's nice to be reminded about "distribute" and "display," and that there is no provision stating that "proper attribution" absolves infringers.

The article also points out that the DMCA requires that the ISP terminate the account of a "repeat infringer" in "appropriate circumstances" - something that Pinterest makes a big show of, with its fake strike system that never leads to account termination.

However a new "willfull blindness" standard may be applied to Pinterest from being eligible for the DMCA safe harbors.

Let's hope the above comes to pass.

How to PIN RESPONSIBLY?

Patricia Bee's heart sure is in the right place, tirelessly promoting "responsible pinning" with proper attribution and a link back to the original website - on her Pinterest page.

The misconception that accreditation of an image to the creator and a link to the creator's website absolves one from copyright infringement is so rampant that even people that cruisade in favor of respecting copyrights unwittingly disseminate it.

Class Action Lawsuit Against Google Images?

In Standing up against Google’s new Image Search and the copyright issues involved – Class action lawsuit, Mia McPherson writes:

I said I would be happy to take part in a Class Action suit against Google and due to a recent conversation with an attorney I realize that class action suit is entirely possible and I want to inform as many photographers as I can about it.

I had a very interesting conversation today with attorney William R. Restis of Finkelstein & Krinsk LLP that was very informative about the possibility of a class action law suit against Google with the focus being on the copyright issues that their new image search raises.

[...] Contact William R. Restis of Finkelstein & Krinsk LLP. This is the same firm that filed a class action law suit against Instagram in December of 2012 for their change in Terms of Service, a suit that forced Instagram to reconsider those changes to their TOS.

Email: wrr@classactionlaw.com

Pinterest's Ridiculously Ineffective Warnings.

At last, I found a reaction from someone receiving a copyright notice from Pinterest. Heidi Lyn Burke 's Burke can be summarized as "I'm curious whose picture it is, I can't figure it out, moving on!"

If they hadn't told me about it I wouldn't have even noticed . . . still, I wonder what exactly it was.

Another blogger, Duck Duck Cow dwells in irony, featuring a heavy copyright notice protecting her own blog:

Copyright Notice Copyright 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007. Every paragraph, sentence and split modifier on this blog is the sole property of the Cow, as the author, unless other credit is given. Any use or reproduction of this stuff without written consent of the author is strictly prohibited.

The blog features 4 images uploaded from Pinterest that credit the "pin" and link to it, rather than crediting the author directly, and linking to the original content.

That's for irony.

More reading: Copyright, terms of use and Pinterest by by Judy G. Russell

For references, below is a "strike" letter dated Feb 20:

“This is to let you know that we removed one (or more) of your Pins as a result of a copyright complaint. The complaint was not directed against you or your Pin. It was reported by ####### and directed against another user who Pinned or re-Pinned the same content from the following address: #########

While many copyright owners are happy to have their content Pinned on Pinterest, we recognize that some do not want their content to appear on Pinterest. Where, as here, a copyright owner notifies us that they want their content removed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), it is our policy to remove the allegedly infringing Pin, as well as all other Pins that contain the same content if the copyright owners so choses.

Again, this complaint was not directed at you, or anything you did. We just thought you’d like to know why we removed your Pin.

Happy Pinning and thanks again for using Pinterest.

The Pinterest Team
Pinterest DMCA #ID 0000000″

Lawyerly Tactics

The Copyright Zone reports on a trend in attorney's continuing education to offer classes aimed at defending clients against cases of copyright infringement. The second point is worth noting:

2. Send a letter saying “We have taken it down. Thanks for letting us know. Goodnight”. Never offer real money to a non-represented claimant. Few photographers hire lawyers. If you do hear from a lawyer then you can start paying real attention to the case.

Pinners will love point #5:

5. Always claim that since there was no copyright notice your client who is not a lawyer, “had no reason to know anything was wrong” and that “no malice was intended”.

The Seventh Most Influencial Person On Pinterest

According to Dailydot.com's Lauren Ray Creators Against Pinterest ranks #7 out of 10 most influencial persons on Pinterest.

...her protest shows just how new and unusual Pinterest’s platform is and how the site will have to overcome uncharted challenges if it wants to keep content creators happy.

Well hun it's never going to make me (or other content creators that exploit the distribution of their own work, a right granted under copyright law) happy unless the NOPIN tag becomes the default state, and that giving permissions to pin pictures is what requires action.

I hope to continue moving up the rank - especially now that even Google Images is emulating Pinterest's "pioneering" image copyright grab.

More On Google Images

Google has become the biggest image scraper of the Millennium is one of the best commentaries on the new Image search, do not miss it!

Google has made a serious mistake, they are looking at class action lawsuits being filed against their company. As a photographer and copyright holder I’d be happy to join any and all of those class action law suits against Google. The way I see it Google is crapping on our rights as artists, creators and photographers. And I am furious about it.

SIGN PETITION HERE