
Pinterest, We Have a Problem - CMartucci
http://whatblag.com/2012/03/07/pinterest-we-have-a-problem/
======
OneBytePerGreen
Pinterest has a market valuation of > 200 million dollars...

30%+ of its images are flickr images...

... 99%+ of which are "All Rights Reserved".

How many

... page views,

... new subscribers,

... and $$$

have the most-pinned flickr images generated for pinterest, with the author
not seeing a single cent... not even having the satisfaction of seeing their
popularity on pinterest reflect in their flickr stats?

And: Pinterest does not even have the decency to display the author name and
license info next to the image.

Pinterest's business model is flawed; it is based on systematic violation of
copyright. At some point, someone will start a class-action lawsuit and invite
flickr photographers whose works got "pinned" to sign up, to reclaim part of
that >$200 million pie.

In fact, this seems like a valid startup idea to me: Create a one-page website
explaining to flickr users what has been going on. Do a systematic reverse
image search to find out which authors have been affected and invite them to
join. Arrange with an interested lawfirm to get a % of their fee in exchange
for delivering the list of potential plaintiffs.

~~~
js2
Recently, I wanted to make some picture postcards of various locations around
the US for personal use, so I went looking for images. I found many on Flickr.
I wanted to compensate the original photographer. There is no easy way to do
this.

At best, some photographs have a "request to license" link that bounces you to
a third party (typically Getty Images) which offers to "Review the photo to
determine if it's a good fit for licensing through us; Contact the
photographer; Handle the details like releases and pricing" and takes "between
two and seven days to arrange licensing." with prices typically around $100
for usable resolution for a postcard.

At worst, you have to sign in to Yahoo so that you can send the photographer a
message about wanting to use their photo. You may or may not get a reply, and
you have to arrange how to pay the photographer, if at all.

This may make sense for images which are to be used in a commercial context,
but for personal use like how I wanted to use the images, it's way too
expensive and much too much friction.

The vast majority of images will never be used commercially. There should be
an easier way to remunerate the photographer, and at more reasonable prices. A
"Pix Store" if you will. Maybe that's what the stock photo sites are supposed
to be, but they don't have nearly the inventory.

Sorry for the tangent.

~~~
Terretta
"This may make sense for images which are to be used in a commercial context,
but for personal use like how I wanted to use the images, it's way too
expensive and much too much friction."

That's why Flickr lets you search for Creative Commons images, for which the
photographer gives you that personal use permission in advance.

~~~
js2
There are shades of a grey between commercial use and free use which are
unaddressed.

~~~
Terretta
You think so? I license photos through Creative Commons, and differently
depending on the shades of personal to commercial I consider inherent in the
potential market for a photo.

I find it covers all the shades of commerciality I've considered. Meanwhile,
for a purely commercial photographer, the getty images option is there, and
those won't come up in the Creative Commons search unless licensed
appropriately.

The CC search tool on Flickr is a fantastic tool for finding photos of the
exact "shade" of use you're looking for.

~~~
js2
CC photos are all free for non-commercial use, correct? What if you'd like to
be compensated, but not at rates that justify the overhead of Getty Images?
Many of the images I found were not CC licensed, nor did they have a Getty
Images option. Those are the images I'm referring to.

e.g., go search Flickr for "drawdy falls". No results in Getty, no results in
the Commons, but a handful of images from photographers that are retaining
full copyright, but have't posted contact info. Maybe they don't want
compensation and just failed to select CC when they posted. Who knows.
Regardless, many of the images I found were in this middle ground. I'm not
trying to sound entitled here, just pointing out that there's lots of images
that sadly cannot be used.

------
jfarmer
I have one direct comment and one meta-comment about the issue of Pinteret and
copyright.

First, I see no issue with their Terms of Service. That language is 100%
cover-your-ass boilerplate, and any site that allows people to upload content
will have a similar clause in their ToS. Facebook, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc.
all do.

See, e.g., section 6.C of YouTube's ToS:
[http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms](http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms)

If you find people are sharing your copyrighted material on Pinterest you
should file a DMCA claim with them. That's how the mechanism is designed to
work, for better or worse.

Second, when you react viscerally to what Pinterest is doing or enabling,
think carefully about your opinion of YouTube. With respect to content, is
there a substantive difference between these early days of Pinterest and the
early days of YouTube?

The MPAA is probably saying, "See? You don't like it when it happens to you,
either."

~~~
antiterra
The indemnification clause is definitely 100% boilerplate and used in most any
site that allows user-generated content. Facebook contains it near verbatim in
item 15.2 of their terms. The license grant is a bit different, since Facebook
allows you to terminate the license, though under particular conditions.

The significant issue here is the idea that the intended primary use for
Pinterest may infringe on the rights of others. This is what took down
Napster, and, to me, indemnifying Pintereist is too risky at this point.

It's my understanding that Pinterest is attempting to move to licensed and
sponsored pins and they haven't annoyed any large industry groups and might
even fare better legally than YouTube did. Who knows.

~~~
jfarmer
Yes, they're definitely playing with fire, and they'll have to address it soon
given the rate they're growing.

But the outrage, _outrage_ , OUTRAGE at Pinterest over this clause here just
tells me people are ignorant of (1) what this clause really means and (2) how
many times they've agreed to it in the past.

It's 100% nerdrage in my opinion, and a month from now nobody will be talking
about it.

~~~
ktizo
I cannot see how you can have (in reality, not legally) agreed to a clause
without first knowing about it.

~~~
jfarmer
Much of it is a conceit, yes, and I'm not qualified to comment on the legal
precedents surrounding such licenses.

I'm sure Pinterest makes you check a box saying you agree to the Terms of Use
before they let you create an account.

Whether that's sufficient is up to a court to decide, and an attorney could
tell you the likelihood of a successful suit given a specific fact pattern.

I'm not an attorney, though.

As I said below, people -- engineers, especially -- get caught up in
contractual technicalities. The fundamental question is: do you trust
Pinterest to do right by you?

Flickr has a similar clause that every photographer who has uploaded their
photos has agreed to, but they do right by their users and so nobody believes
one day Flickr is going to undo all that work. It would alienate their
customers.

If you think Pinterest is untrustworthy, why do you think some text on a
screen that _they wrote themselves_ is going to impact their behavior one way
or another?

~~~
jacobolus
Actually, Flickr’s TOS (now a general Yahoo one) is quite different. They make
it clear that their rights are limited to the specific uses obvious and
essential to the function of their sites:

> _Yahoo! does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for
> inclusion on the Yahoo! Services. However, with respect to Content you
> submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the
> Yahoo! Services, you grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free and
> non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:_

> _With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make
> available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Yahoo! Services
> other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify,
> adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Yahoo!
> Services solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made
> available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to
> include such Content on the Yahoo! Services and will terminate at the time
> you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Yahoo! Services._

The key here is “solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted
or made available.” Pinterest’s ToS doesn’t have such language.

Additionally, Yahoo’s ToS doesn’t indemnify Yahoo against all possible
liability or force their legal bills w/r/t copyright claims &c. onto users.
The relevant language is much more constrained:

> _You agree that Yahoo! has no responsibility or liability for the deletion
> or failure to store any messages and other communications or other Content
> maintained or transmitted by the Yahoo! Services. You acknowledge that
> Yahoo! reserves the right to log off accounts that are inactive for an
> extended period of time._

~~~
afiske
Although Yahoo is definitely more constrained then Pinterest in terms of their
license language, they actually do have a similar indemnity clause:

"You agree to indemnify and hold Yahoo! and its subsidiaries, affiliates,
officers, agents, employees, partners and licensors harmless from any claim or
demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to
or arising out of Content you submit, post, transmit, modify or otherwise make
available through the Yahoo! Services, your use of the Yahoo! Services, your
connection to the Yahoo! Services, your violation of the TOS, or your
violation of any rights of another."

------
yuvadam
Oh please, not again.

Absolutely any and every product you use has ridiculous Terms of Service.

These documents are drafted up by lawyers. Their job is not to please the end
users who care to read through the legalese. Their job is to create a document
that will protect the product vendor in court, if and when the time comes.

Lets put an end to finding eccentricities in ToSs/EULAs, it's getting kind of
redundant. If this is some sort of game to see who can find the most absurd
clauses in these documents, we're all losing.

~~~
Terretta
For "content" creators, these are not absurdities, these are terms that can
make or break your ability to get paid for your work and put food on the
table.

A photographer having to go to court to defend his ownership of photos they'd
exhibited through twitpic and get paid by newspapers who claimed the ToS said
he'd released his rights, demonstrates this is not a "please not again"
problem, this is ongoing, big corps are misusing these at the expense of
individual artists, and the problem's getting worse.

Every day I talk to artists who have no idea that posting their latest music
video to a video sharing site could give that company performance rights in
other media, or, as in this case, that pinning their own photos to Pinterest
would let Pinterest publish a "Best Pins of 2012" book w/o compensating the
artist.

This needs to be called out and both consumers and creators deserve to be
informed.

~~~
pork
Let me rephrase GP's comment, since I felt the same thing as them. Allow me to
set out a hypothetical.

You find that Pinterest's terms are awful, and stage a very successful revolt
with your own site, sans the offensive terms. Users flock to your site, and
Pinterest dies a sad death. One of the copyright owners of your "pinned"
content decides to go after you, and decides to sue the pants off you. So you
freak out and hire a top-notch lawyer, who will draft a new set of terms for
your users to shield you from the liability you now realize you have.

Repeat, iterate, and before you know it -- your top-notch lawyer guarantees
that you will face no more expensive liability, but you now have the onerous
terms set out in practically all sites that allow user-generated content.

Basically, these terms allow you to bump the liability from yourself to the
user who uploaded it (because they have pinned the pictures in bad faith, in
violation of your terms, etc.)

So there's really no point railing against the terms -- they aren't going
away, and the best you can hope for is very minor modifications of wording
with sufficient popular pressure. Good luck on that.

~~~
alxp
This post we're discussing _is_ the popular pressure. And yes, I also wish
them good luck because the pendulum is currently far too in the direction
against fairness to end-users.

~~~
growingconcern
Exactly. Saying that this is just the way it is is ludicrous. They could under
sufficient pressure change the wording so that they aren't assuming ownership
or unlimited use and that it is something more akin to fair use.

------
chrisacky
There was a similar HN post/Google+ post last week. I can't remember where I
read it.

Something along the lines of an avid lawyer decided to kill her account
because she read the ToS and drew exactly the same conclusions as what you had
just wrote.

While it's quite easy to regard this as been a ticking timebomb, a few things
to probably note.

If you are a photographer or someone who holds copyright in a work you would
most likely just issue a DMCA.

Now, lets assume that you aren't content with that. You might argue that you
have incurred losses and want some form of damages. You are first going to
have to contact Pinterest to get the information of the user who has listed
this said work. Are Pinterest goijng to give up this information so willingly?
Probably not...

~~~
cbs
>You are first going to have to contact Pinterest to get the information of
the user who has listed this said work. Are Pinterest goijng to give up this
information so willingly? Probably not...

IIRC, in this case you sue John Doe and have the court compel Pinterest to
identify him.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Does pinterest require identifying information in order to register?

~~~
girlvinyl
It requires a facebook or twitter login. Plus it should have some kind of IP
log somewhere. Pinterest won't have the entire identity, but this is how
e-discovery works. You keep sending subpoenas up the hierarchy until you get
to the ISP. The ISP provides the subscriber information.

------
zaroth
Speaking of the DMCA Safe Harbor...

Images on Pinterest, in some cases, were not even uploaded from a user's hard
drive; they were pulled in via a the 'Pin It' button
(<http://pinterest.com/about/goodies/>)

In this case, Pinterest even acknowledges that the images are not the property
of the user, "When you pin from a website, we automatically grab the source
link so we can credit the original creator."

I'll bet the 'Pin It' button ultimately gets them in hot water, because it's
hard to argue the content is 'user generated' when they know, via their 'Pin
It' code, exactly where the content is actually coming from.

§ 512(c) [DMCA Safe Harbor] also requires that the OSP: 1) not receive a
financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity, 2) not be
aware of the presence of infringing material or know any facts or
circumstances that would make infringing material apparent,

I wonder if 'the original source URL' of a image may be construed as a fact
that would make infringing material apparent. IANAL.

~~~
icebraining
_In this case, Pinterest even acknowledges that the images are not the
property of the user, "When you pin from a website, we automatically grab the
source link so we can credit the original creator."_

And that's fine - their ToS says you need to be either the copyright holder
_or_ have consent from the copyright holder. For example, if I "pin" a CC
licensed image, I have such consent.

~~~
waitwhat
_their ToS says you need to be either the copyright holder or have consent
from the copyright holder._

I've seen warez sites with exactly the same disclaimer. It didn't work for
them either.

~~~
icebraining
But Youtube, Flickr, DeviantArt and thousands of other user submitted content
sites are still online.

~~~
antiterra
As far as I know there is no industry group for still-image photographers
anything like the MPAA or RIAA. All three of those sites are and were filled
with substantial original content, so they can claim that illegal use is not
their primary drive. I don't know if Pinterest can successfully argue the same
thing.

It also should be noted that YouTube spent a _great_ deal of money on
settlements and arrangements with RIAA & MPAA members, content networks and
others to survive.

~~~
jlujan
"As far as I know there is no industry group for still-image photographers
anything like the MPAA or RIAA."

The American Society of Media Photographers, Graphic Artists Guild, the
Picture Archive Council of America, the North American Nature Photography
Association, Professional Photographers of America. They do not have the deep
pockets or political clout of MPAA or RIAA but they are large industry groups.

I think someone else mentioned a class action suite against Google for
copyright infringement by photographers. The lawsuit started with scanning and
displaying images from the Google Library Project but includes infringement
claims for images.google.com, etc.

<http://asmp.org/articles/asmp-qa-google-class-action.html>

------
Alex3917
So you're claiming that pinterest should pay your legal bills for you? That's
ridiculous. If you upload a photo that's copyrighted by someone else and get
sued, why should pinterest foot the bill for that? There is no way the service
would ever be viable under those conditions, because it would create an
enormous moral hazard.

~~~
why-el
There is no moral hazard when they are claiming the right to sell material
that might be copyrighted.

~~~
Alex3917
That isn't an issue because you are co-assigning your copyright to them,
assuming you own the copyright. And if you don't own the copyright then it's
not a valid contract, so it doesn't matter. It's not like you're legally able
to sign away someone else's copyright. Which is exactly why the indemnity
clause is there, to prevent pinterest from being responsible if people are
dumb enough to do that.

------
otterley
I am an attorney (and as far as I can tell, the author is not one, so take his
"analysis" with a pillar of salt). This is not legal advice though.

With respect to the following paragraph:

"So, if you snap an awesome photograph, upload it to your blog, and someone
pins it, that person is either (1) claiming exclusive ownership of it; or (2)
giving Pinterest your consent to reproduce it (and you just thought you were
being flattered)."

Actually, no. You can't transfer a right you don't have. All rights to a work
are vested in the author of a protected work; only the author can consent to
any of the activities protected by copyright.

It's just like selling a house you don't own. First, you're committing fraud
if you falsely represent that you have the right to sell it; and second, the
actual owner isn't bound by anything you have done (the deed doesn't go to the
putative buyer).

~~~
1point2
And there in lies the problem with TOS (or is the problem with the law?) if
one needs to be an attorney to understand them, what hope is there for the
ordinary folk - just saying. No wonder people just click through.

------
edwinnathaniel
Watermark the pictures in your blog?

By the way, I found out that you can watermark all of your images that you're
about to upload to Picasa Web via Picasa Desktop (there's an option to do that
before you Sync to Web). I found that feature very useful if you organize your
pictures using Picasa (and show them on your blog).

~~~
freehunter
Problem is, copyright is implied on the part of the creator. It does not need
to be applied for, nor is there any _requirement_ for a copyright notice.

Just because you didn't watermark your image doesn't mean the copyright now
belongs to Pintrest (or imgur, or Google+, or Facebook, etc) because people
who didn't hold the copyright and didn't have the standing to give it away
posted it.

~~~
icebraining
And that's why you can send a DMCA takedown request and they'll have to take
it down. I fail to see the problem here.

------
mtgentry
'The “pin” button remains inactive until the user types something. Anything.
Might this count as “criticizing” or “commenting”?'

Interesting. I'd like to see a court case further define what constitutes a
"comment" on the web. Other sites do this too, for example Buzzfeed.com's
entire business model is based on taking content from bloggers and then
hosting it on their own site, without providing any kind of insightful comment
_.

_[http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/if-both-of-angelinas-legs-
wer...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/if-both-of-angelinas-legs-were-showing)

~~~
anothermachine
"commenting" is only one aspect of fair use, and it generally is interpreted
to mean "copying a small snippet as an example" or "reproducing a low-
resolution copy for reference" to provide context.

Another aspect of fair use is "not depriving the owner of their own commercial
use of the work".

------
zaroth
If I'm a copyright holder who feels like my work is being misappropriated by
Pinterest, I'm going to sue Pinterest, not the user. Their Terms of Service
won't stop them from getting sued, and the indemnity clause won't magically
make money appear in their pockets to pay for their defense. If they decide to
start suing their users for recovery, that would be pretty amusing.

"I trusted the person who gave me the image" is not a legal defense for
copyright infringement. Their only chance is to stay within the DMCA safe
harbor or else they will eventually be shut down.

~~~
wpietri
As my lawyer explained to me long ago, who eventually "wins" a lawsuit is
rarely interesting. Cost, time, and agony to get there are much more relevant
factors.

The "our users represent that the content is theirs" may not keep Pinterest
from losing an eventual lawsuit, but it does complicate things enough that it
discourages legal action. That may be sufficient for them to cash out long
before the suits are complete.

Or, like YouTube, things like that may allow them to grow big enough that they
end up with sufficient negotiating power that they can get away with quite a
bit, and possibly reshape what's considered reasonable.

------
npsimons
I think many are dismissing this as "standard TOS/EULA legalese" and missing
the point. Let's consider a scenario: let's say you post some photos online,
and license them under the CC-By-SA license
(<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>). Then someone pins the
photos you took to Pinterest. Next, Pinterest sells the photos you took, then
catches someone copying or modifying the photos you took and sues them for
copyright. To top it all off, Pinterest doesn't even give you attribution.

This is _exactly_ the sort of thing that CC and GPL were created to combat:
ruining someone's life through the legal system based on abuse of the
copyright system. You want to sue someone over copyright violations of
information you have copyright on? Fine. You want to sell something licensed
under CC-By-SA? Fine. But you better be ready to comply to the license and
allow whoever you give those works to the right to copy, sell and modify those
works. I highly doubt Pinterest is prepared for this, and their TOS _is_
overreaching.

------
maqr
Maybe all the buzz about Pinterest is because so many people think that
finding an image online makes it publicly redistributable. "Pinning" is just
another way of sharing.

I get the impression that there's much wider public acceptance of sharing
(pirating?) pictures than music, movies, or software. I don't have a good
answer as to why this might be, but I'd be curious what HN thinks.

~~~
elithrar
> I get the impression that there's much wider public acceptance of sharing
> (pirating?) pictures than music, movies, or software. I don't have a good
> answer as to why this might be, but I'd be curious what HN thinks.

Anecdotally, it's because photographs and images are seen as "easier to
reproduce" (whether this is true or not is another matter), and therefore
possibly easier to justify by those doing the sharing.

That, and there's far less friction to sharing photos/images than video and
software.

~~~
eurleif
Perhaps it's also that photos seem less valuable than songs or movies, since
pretty much anyone can take a decent photo? (Decent by the person's own
standards, at least; maybe not by a professional photographer's.)

------
brador
Could this argument also apply to sites like Readability? Since it removes
advertising (hence income for the writers) from articles.

~~~
viraptor
I don't think so, unless readability grants itself rights to reproduce and
sell every article that passes through its engine. Does it?

~~~
icebraining
Maybe not sell, but they it'd be impossible for Readability to work without
reproducing the articles.

------
fotoblur
Pinterest and Tumblr are by far the worse offenders when it comes to sharing
content from other providers as its not 100% clear, or sometimes elusive, on
how visitor can view the original content. Its as if these sites are cutting
content providers out of the loop which is like throwing out the baby with the
bathwater. They are essentially going to injure the entire ecosystem of
sharing if they keep up with these practices
([http://www.sv411.com/index.php/2012/02/pinterest-gets-
caught...](http://www.sv411.com/index.php/2012/02/pinterest-gets-caught-
changing-user-links-for-extra-income/)).

What's worse is that these shady sharing practices have begun to support a
broader ecosystem of image finding scavengers such as
<http://www.whattopin.com> (see below).

Here is a support ticket we received today at Fotoblur which illustrates the
problems we are seeing (a bit of broken English but you get the picture):

" _I am user
the[http://www.fotoblur.com/portfolio/agnieszkabalut?p=1&id=...](http://www.fotoblur.com/portfolio/agnieszkabalut?p=1&id=370425)
Another user Elinka used my photo art- senza titolo2 by Agnieszka Balut.......
(via Elinka) in the web-site
<http://www.whattopin.com/topic/photography/?id=283634> \- Printerest
(commercial use)

and in the [http://elinka.tumblr.com/post/18734723798/senza-
titolo2-by-a...](http://elinka.tumblr.com/post/18734723798/senza-titolo2-by-
agnieszka-balut) without my permission.

All my images are protected by Copyright (reproduction and printing). All
images on these are the exclusive property of Agnieszka Balut and protected by
the Copyright . Therefore prohibited the publication and reproduction without
written permission from Agnieszka Balut. Any violation will be prosecuted._"

As you can see, this type of sharing confuses people. We usually explain "fair
use" to them but they really don't care. They feel they have rights and they
want action taken. I can fully understand why Flickr blocked Pinterest if they
have been getting the complaints such as we've seen. In the end the burden
falls on the image owner and what ends up happening is they have to chase down
every site owner whose members improperly post their content. They then lose
faith in participating at all because of their inability to control their
content.

------
veverkap
Didn't Pinterest address this to a certain degree? At least from the content
creators - <http://blog.pinterest.com/post/17949261591/growing-up> says that
you can add a meta tag marking your content as not pinnable.

~~~
FireBeyond
"To a certain degree"... Not so much...

So I, as a Content Creator, have to a) be mindful of, and b) take action to
opt out of 1) Pinterest, 2) any other of a potentially large number of sites /
applications, purely in order to ensure said sites don't claim commercial
rights to and derive income from my work and effort?

Not the way it works, or should work, say I.

~~~
icebraining
You can send a DMCA takedown request if you see that someone is misusing your
content. What exactly do you propose? Eliminate any website with user
submitted content? I mean, what if someone posts a work to Hacker News without
permission, should YCombinator be held liable?

------
mikeknoop
So here is a thought. I presume the article is mostly critical of the terms
based on comments here. But consider a service without any "ownership" terms,
etc. Two scenarios:

1\. When a user "pins" an image elsewhere online, the image is downloaded by
Pinterest to their server. When other users browse Pinterest, it is served
directly by Pinterest's servers.

2\. When a user "pins" an image elsewhere online, the image URL is saved by
Pinterest to their server. When other users browse Pinterest, they are
downloading the image directly from the original source.

Scenario (1) I see legal issues with. But scenario (2)? Isn't Pinterest simply
providing a link (ala a search engine)? Moreover, isn't this just how the
internet works?

Surely this has come up before yet I am having trouble finding a similar case.

------
EGreg
This is the problem with importing PUBLIC CONTENT YOU FIND ON THE INTERNET
into a website. Not uploading from your computer, or importing from your own
account somewhere on another site. If the website actually makes a copy of the
media (picture, etc.) and stores it on their servers, they should hope that
the DMCA still considers them a safe harbor.

I think their best bet is to store the images only as a cache, and not as a
permanent import. If the site owner decides to take down the original, then
the cache should disappear soon thereafter.

------
danboarder
Pinterest is more like a visual social bookmarking service than a blog. When
people save bookmarks or share links on delicious or reddit or even twitter,
of course they don't claim ownership of that content, it's just a bookmark.
Similarly, with Pintrest people are saving a visual bookmark of something they
saw that was interesting out on the web or on other social streams, tumblr,
etc. I think a lot of people are missing the point here.

------
xn
If posting an image with a comment is fair use, then arguably the combination
of the image and the comment constitute the Member Content for which the
poster is claiming ownership.

If I publish a review of a work of art, including a reproduction of the work,
in a magazine, my copyright would cover the entire article including the
reproduction. I wouldn't be claiming copyright on the original work.

~~~
ajross
That's pretty much how I see it too. Yes, you own the review, which includes
the right to the image _for the fair use purposes of explaining the review
only_. There is no transitive right if you sell that review to use the image
for any other purpose.

I too find this insane. If anything qualifies for fair use, surely pinterest
does. "Hey look at this cool thing!" is about as close as I can imagine to the
platonic ideal of discussing a copyrighted work.

No one freaked out over /r/pics, so what's the deal here? I hesitate to point
out that pinterest differs mostly in the gender demographics of the user base,
but... yeah.

~~~
dangrossman
> No one freaked out over /r/pics,

/r/pics is just a collection of links to images; it does not reproduce or
redistribute the images.

~~~
ajross
Right, but that's the same sort of legalese excuse-making (or alternatively:
just substitute imgur, which hosts most of that content).

It has nothing to do with whether or not /r/pics constitutes fair use, just
if-it-isn't-fair-use-who-gets-sued? No one, at the time or now, seriously
thought that there was a legal problem for anyone with reddit. So why
pinterest? Again, part of me is really suspicious that it's because it's a
chick site that doesn't cater to geeks.

------
villagefool
Funny thing is that Pinterest in their terms of service are asking people to
follow rules they are breaking for other services...

------
treelovinhippie
I was under the assumption that all social-based sites/companies follow the
same policy, not so they can resell user content, but so they can eventually
go through an acquisition without facing a class action lawsuit from its users
who would demand a % of the sale. e.g. Geocities.

------
JBiserkov
<http://500px.com/terms>

I prefer the old ones though
[http://web.archive.org/web/20110619022738/http://500px.com/t...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110619022738/http://500px.com/terms)

------
yonasb
One phrase comes to mind after reading this: "so what." It's not about what
the terms say, it's about how they're enforced. I don't see any users getting
sued, just a bunch of stories on how you could potentially get sued.

------
kfcm
Just opening the door for business casual G-men [video]:

[http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382781/business-
casual...](http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/382781/business-casual-g-men)

------
cmiles74
Pinterest is caching these images on their servers, not their customers who
are only pasting in links. I find it hard to believe that these end-users will
be held liable for an implementation detail on Pinterest's end. And linking, I
believe is legal.

These are images that are publicly available on the internet and have been
made available, in most cases, by the owner. Is there really a case that
copying these images off the internet is illegal?

~~~
ceol
It's not an issue of copying images off the Internet. It's an issue with
_redistributing_ it, which Pinterest does. Just because an image is on the
Internet does not mean it's up for grabs to whoever gets it.

------
billpatrianakos
What we have here is manufactured outrage. Total non-story. I hope others
don't start piling on now that this has been written.

The real deal is that Pinterest is screwed either way. These terms sound scary
but so long as they are enforced sanely there should be no problem. What do
you expect them to do? Assume liability for users posting content they should
not be posting? They might as well not exist. A lot of startups these days may
as well not even try to get traction as long as bloggers keep getting their
panties in a twist over every TOS they see.

Pinterest provides a service for free that people seem to love. So long as no
one is paying them and they haven't gone public they're damn smart to have
these terms. If I ran Pinterest I wouldn't want to assume liability for some
asshole who leaks a top secret photo on my site that I let him use for free
and as long as I'm giving that service for free I'm going to make some cash
out of my users. This is nowhere near evil. It's business. If someone doesn't
like it they don't have to use it.

Question: How do you get over writer's block? Answer: Start reading some terms
of service or privacy policy docs from any popular online startup and
manufacture some outrage over it. Truth is, if you read any TOS or privacy
policy you're going to find something you can turn into a big deal most of the
time. I've had it with the TOS/privacy policy outrage blogs.

~~~
seldo
I agree completely, but there's a double-standard here. What if instead of
(mostly) photographs pinterest was mostly video? Then it would be YouTube, and
everyone is pretty clear that you shouldn't upload a video to YouTube if you
don't own it. Of course, some people flout that rule, but I figure the
majority of content on YouTube is genuinely owned by the people who post it,
while I very much doubt this is the case on Pinterest.

So which is it? Is it bad that Pinterest is mostly "stolen" content, or bad
that we're not allowed to post similarly "stolen" content on YouTube? The
former implies that Pinterest should start cracking down on people who post
content they don't own; the latter implies that YouTube should stop doing so
(and therefore, copyright law should change).

~~~
kapkapkap
_> but I figure the majority of content on YouTube is genuinely owned by the
people who post it, while I very much doubt this is the case on Pinterest._

That assumption seems fairly inaccurate, see this quote: "Remarkably, more
than one-third of the two billion views of YouTube videos with ads each week
are ... uploaded without the copyright owner’s permission but left up by the
owner’s choice." [1]

[1] <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/technology/03youtube.html>

~~~
jtheory
Didn't read the article, but as far as I can see that doesn't disprove his
assumption.

The NYT quote is talking just about the videos with ads, and then only
discussing them in terms of views (not in terms of percentages of actual
content uploaded, which is something like 24+ hours of content every minute).

------
aiscott
I'm an amateur photographer, and I wasn't too concerned about this until I
read that by Pinning something, their TOS says I am granting them rights to
sell my work.

I don't like that very much.

    
    
      By making available any Member Content through the Site,
      Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs
      a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, 
      transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to 
      sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license,
      sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform,
      transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise 
      exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of
      the Site, Application or Services.
    
    

The rest just seems like standard CYA stuff.

~~~
jfarmer
Again, this is 100% boilerplate. YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, etc. will all have
similar clauses.

See for example section 6.C in YouTube's ToS.
[http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms](http://www.youtube.com/static?gl=US&template=terms)

Why? Because without this blanket waiver it opens them up to all kinds of
legal issues since a core mechanic of their site is re-pinning.

If you upload a photo to their site and someone else re-pins it, did that
person just violate your copyright?

If Pinterest implements a "most popular pins" page and features one of your
photos on that page, did they just violate your copyright?

Yes, you can come up with legalese for each potential scenario, but it really
does complicate things. It's easier for them to just have a blanket clause and
act in good faith, than open themselves up to the possibility of accidentally
using someone's work in a way their ToS didn't whitelist.

~~~
adamc
Saying it's boilerplate doesn't make it right. It's scammy.

~~~
icebraining
What do you propose instead?

~~~
glimcat
Be explicit about what forms of (re)distribution are allowed instead of going
for a blanket license. Where appropriate, also be explicit about what is not
allowed.

It shouldn't say much more than "you give us the right to use your content to
fulfill the services you ask us to provide, and you have the right to remove
your content at any time."

~~~
adamc
I like that answer, because it is clear and doesn't seem like a sneaky over-
reach.

------
rjurney
I am SO fucking sick of douchebag angst driven attacks by sniveling failure-
driven wannabees on legalese in terms of service that are essential to make
any and every successful consumer Internet site, application or platform work.

If you don't like it, don't use it. Go back to the pre-social web with your
mom and grandmother. If you are going to criticize it or upvote it, think for
a moment about the reasoning behind it. Yesterday Path. Today Pinterest. Let's
hope someone else makes something great for you to kick in the teeth tomorrow.

Shut the fuck up already.

~~~
angryasian
don't know why im responding to obvious troll. but they are really no better
than megaupload at this point. Redistributing copy righted material without
permission. Its a far bigger legal matter.

