It’s A Matter Of Ethics ~ Formulating A Personal Pinterest Policy

Wow – what a week.  Blog posts and online news articles have been popping up left, right and centre regarding the Pinterest copyright hullabaloo, providing some interesting reading.

There appeared to be four major camps at play:

• OMG how dare Pinterest operate in such a manner! Get behind thee Satan!
• Watch your backs pin-addicts – copyright infringers deserve to go to hell!
• Meh – I love my Pinterest and I’m going to keep doing what I’ve always done; if you don’t want your images ripped off, don’t put them on the internet in the first place!
• Hmmm, this is really concerning – I love my Pinterest and I’m not willing to give it up but I do recognise there’s a larger issue at play here and I’d better come up with a personal plan for pinning.

I’m in the latter group. I thought about the issue all week, and I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do about it.

I’m not giving up Pinterest, but I’m completely overhauling how I use it.

Changes I’m Making

The immediate deletion of:

• any pin ‘uploaded by user’
• any pin originating from google.com
• any pin from photo-sharing websites (ie, anything uploaded from Flickr before it’s recent adoption of a ‘Pinterest kill switch’ on copyrighted images)
• any pin originating from Facebook (if you must share it, share it ON Facebook!)
• any board whose sole purpose is to ‘collect’ images (ie, ‘dream home’ or ‘I love rainbows’ boards (exception: DIY home improvement websites who offer tutorials as a service to readers)
• any pin depicting original artwork, comics or graphic design elements (ie, The Oatmeal, Natalie Dee etc – the artists deserve to control the distribution of these themselves)
• any pin originating from a website where handmade artisans sell their work (including Etsy, MadeIt, Big Cartel, Folksy, personal websites etc – explanation below)

Yes, it’s a pain (especially if you already have thousands of pins to check through) but in the long run it will make the Pinterest experience better for everyone…including copyright owners.

Be A Responsible Pinner

1. Do not ‘repin’ – instead, follow the link back to the source website, and pin ‘from scratch’ (It won’t eliminate the nastiness of scraper websites, but it will help)
2. Never use the ‘embed’ feature (to the right of every pin) – Pinterest is credited as the source if someone clicks on a pin embedded on a blog or website, not the copyright owner.
3. Use your common sense – if someone repinned your image without credit or the correct link, would you be annoyed? If the answer is yes, show respect and do the legwork to figure out the source yourself.
4. If in doubt, ask permission – most blog or website owners would appreciate the consideration and may be prompted to put a permanent ‘permission notice’ (see below) on their sites to make it easier for future readers to pin.

For Blog / Website Owners

1. If pinning is something you support, make it as easy and clear as possible for Pinterest users to do so – include a ‘Pin It’ button at the end of every post.
2. Have a prominently-located (in the sidebar) ‘Pinterest Policy’ for your readers. If you’re confused about what’s okay to pin, it’s a safe bet your own readers are as well.
3. If you do not want your content pinned, include the ‘Opt Out’ code (and it wouldn’t hurt to include your reasons for not allowing pinning in your official Pinterest Policy)
4. Include your site’s URL on EVERY SINGLE IMAGE you upload for use anywhere on the internet, not just on Pinterest. Consider making a ‘URL button/logo’ that includes a recognisable graphical element from your blog design – a particular font style, a portion of your header – as well as the URL itself. Brand your images the way you would brand anything else online.

Special Consideration For Artists And Sellers Of Handmade Items

When you pin something to a board under the banner of ‘DIY’ or ‘I Could Make This’ or ‘My Next Project’, consider that you may in fact be taking money from the pocket of a person who may be relying on the income from their online store to pay the bills.

A crafter who puts a handmade doll up for sale on Etsy has, in most cases, spent many, many hours bent over the drafting board or sewing machine to create something original – they own the copyright to the photograph (if they have taken it themselves), the pattern, and any work produced from it. When someone uses an image as the basis to create their own versions of the work – especially with the view to sell them – that’s stealing.

Some may argue that any pin that links back to the source – let’s say, Etsy – is in fact driving business back to the crafter, but for every person who buys something because of the exposure of a pin/item on Pinterest, there are ten or twenty who are pinning the images merely as inspiration, with the view to creating their own versions, some to sell.

It is okay to be inspired by an artist, but be fair.

My own personal policy about pinning ‘handmade’ or ‘craft’ items is this: I will no longer be pinning anything from any website where an artist is selling their work, and I will only be pinning craft and handmade projects from websites that are clearly ‘tutorial-driven’, as I believe there’s implied permission for sharing attached.

It goes without saying that you should never sell anything that you did not design yourself, unless you asked specific permission to do so (most craft blogs/websites do not allow sales from their tutorials anyway).

If in doubt, ask permission, or simply print the project out for personal use and avoid pinning it altogether.

Disclaimer

Die-hard Pinterest fans like myself really do not want to see the website gone, but we also recognise the need to be fair to copyright owners.  Unfortunately, I’m only human, and I’ve got about 1000 pins to sort through in the near future.  If you happen to see a pin on one of my boards that you think breaches my personal Pinterest Policy – give me a holler via the contact form up in the menu.  I’ll investigate and remove the pin if necessary.