July 2011 Moms
Interesting Pinterest Article
Found this on another board, what are your thoughts?
https://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-copyright-issues-lawyer-2012-2
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Re: Interesting Pinterest Article
I think that the legal realities of copyright law and the popular perception of copyright law are dangerously far apart from each other right now.
There's this widely held (and false) belief that the only obligation that someone has to a copyright holder is to credit them. That's complete bunk. Like completely wrong. The copyright holder has a right to decide how their work is ... well, copied.
If I post a photo to my website, legally nobody even has the right to make a permanent copy on their hard drive (browser cache aside). We're talking legally, not practically here.
The very basis of Pinterest is to copy work that you have no right to copy. Yes, some of it falls under fair use but most does not. The photos that link to nothing without even a mention of what they were originally meant to illustrate are a complete violation. Everything else falls somewhere on the spectrum of violation.*
Most copyright holders (pretty much anyone who creates original content) understand how the internet works. We understand that it's great to have someone pin your stuff and link back to your website because then you get more visitors. Companies really get this. We even understand that sometimes shiit happens and your stuff gets plain ripped off. That happens a lot. I run into my own work on the internet fairly often.
I only get stabby when I find my stuff and someone else is actually claiming credit for it or has repackaged it in something that they are claiming. Not cool.
But yeah, copyright holders have a right to determine how their property is copied and presented. I mean, how would a scientist feel if their paper was posted (out of context) to a crazy conspiracy theorist's site? How would you feel if your kid's picture was posted to a site with a sexual theme? It's important that people have control over their property, tangible or intellectual.
So yeah, most people understand that putting stuff on the internet means that you've kind of released it to the universe, but that is not the legal realty of it at ALL.
Right now Pinterest is kind of operating on the wink wink nod nod system.
That said, I use Pinterest as a means of promoting my own work and use a Creative Commons license for my work on Flickr. I've accepted the trade-offs of the internet and of sharing my work to promote myself (also, it's super cool to see where my photos turn up -- fully credited), but that doesn't mean that my choice is / should be the choice of everyone who creates original content.
Legally, it is still their work = their rules.
* If I ever have a band, I'm naming it Spectrum of Violation.
We are getting paid by the word here, right?
I love this and will become a groupie!