
Flickr disables Pinterest pins on all copyrighted images - evo_9
http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/24/flickr-pinterest-pin/
======
gmaslov
What? They disabled Pinterest on ALL images which are not in the public
domain? Sheesh, might as well drop the feature altogether if you're going to
disable it on 99.9% of content.

Oh, you mean they allowed copyright owners to disable Pinterest on their
images. That makes more sense.

Sorry, it just gets my goose when people misuse the word "copyrighted" this
way.

~~~
krisrak
Here is how you pin blocked content to Pinterest in simple steps ;)
[http://blog.initlabs.com/post/18226946517/how-to-pin-
blocked...](http://blog.initlabs.com/post/18226946517/how-to-pin-blocked-
content-to-pinterest)

------
courage
Flickr and Pinterest both have systems that allow copyright holders to specify
what rights they wish to grant to others. Those two systems are now
interoperable. Cool.

~~~
jchrisa
Agree. Isn't this the whole point of having a creative commons API on Flickr
in the first place?

~~~
potatolicious
If we're going to start defining the CC license in this way, we _really_ need
one that's even more restrictive - i.e., all rights reserved, except social
network sharing. The current CC non-commercial, non-derivative, attribution-
required seems insufficient in comparison.

~~~
eCa
What surprises me most about CC-licensed work is how often the author/licensor
neglects one aspect of the license:

\--------

Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the
author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or
your use of the work)

\-------- [1]

 _Attribution in manner specified by the author or licensor._ I can't remember
a single time that I have seen anybody that uses CC specify in what manner
they require attribution.

It would be quite simple to require reasonable attribution in a way that a
user of pinterest can't do, and in that case use of the licensed work would be
in conflict of the license used.

[1] <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/>

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datums
Facebook allows you to post pins to fb, but doesn't allow you to pin images
that are fb. <http://min.us/mbrREewTH7>

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andyfleming
It seems as though the pinning of a photo on flickr would give the artist more
recognition.

Isn't that more helpful than hurtful?

~~~
OneBytePerGreen
Just checked... pinterest creates a copy of the medium-size image and stores
it on their own servers. Users can view and re-pin it without seeing the
context and author. Very surprising to me, and not cool.

~~~
cheald
Given that the alternative is effectively stealing bandwidth, which would you
prefer?

~~~
Karunamon
It's a valid point, downvoters. I think that having to ask permission to link
an image inline is pretty silly - the responsible thing to do would be to
rehost it in some manner and then link the rehosted version.

Screwed if you do (accused of breaking "copyright"), screwed if you dont
(accused of "stealing" bandwidth).

~~~
true_religion
I guess you don't really believe in copyright if you're going to use scare
quotes around it.

~~~
viscanti
I guess I don't see how copyright applies to publicly viewable images online
that are being used for non-commercial purposes. Certainly someone can link to
that page, and anyone could see the image. It seems to come down to "credit",
and there should be a link to the original content.

The internet is pretty much built around the idea of finding interesting
things in other places online and then sharing that. In fact, Google made a
very profitable business just following and index those links to other
content. The point of pinterest is to share interesting visual pieces. So a
textual link doesn't do as much as showing a thumbnail. But it's still the
same basic concept. Just as blogs expose links to interesting articles, so too
does pinterest expose interesting pictures. In both cases, if you like the
original what you see, you should be able to visit the original
author/creator's page to check out more.

I see this as about as reasonable as blocking links on a blog. Don't publish
articles online if you don't want people to link to them. Don't publish photos
online if you don't want people to link to them (or share smaller thumbnails).
If someone takes your article/photo and claims credit for it, then you have a
valid argument. But if someone's whole "crime" is to enjoy your content enough
to share it and advertise for you, a "thank you" would be more appropriate
than arguing that they're infringing your copyright.

~~~
true_religion
The poster I responded to was talking about two seperate things:

1\. Linking an image: Here no, copyright probably doesn't apply though
attribution would be nice.

2\. Copying an image to your server and serving a scaled version, or a
complete duplicate of the original. Here copyright applies.

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fufulabs
What happens if [Etsy, Amazon, Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger] blocks Pinterest
and build pinboards into their own site?

~~~
nswanberg
Then that company would be an underdog in the pinboard business, with lost
referrals (Etsy, Amazon) or a distraction from the core focus (WordPress,
Blogger), and have to spend several years building a community of users who
think to go to the new site to pin things. And other sites would presumably
also block this upstart.

If pinning were just a technology feature Tumblr seems the closest to being
able to duplicate it (their archive view seems vaguely close to a pinboard,
minus the interactivity), but they would also have to provide users with a
better alternative.

------
Atomus
I don't get it, Pinterest is an enabler for photographers and artist. I never
go to Flickr, could care less, but if I see something of interest on Pinterest
(or any other sharing site), I would actually make the effort to go to Flickr
and check it out. If I really like what I see from said artist/photographer, I
would perhaps consider purchasing some of their work to display in my home. If
not, by sharing what I saw, I potentially gave that artist a ton more eyeballs
on their work, thus increasing their chances of people buying their artwork.
The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages of sharing IMHO

~~~
courage
The benefits of share most likely do outweigh disadvantages for most people,
most of the time. The whole point of putting photos on Flickr is that you can
share them with other people. However, Flickr also gives its users the
opportunity to specify access controls on their photos as well. Being able to
control who sees, and who shares photos is another reason to use Flickr. As
both an engineer and a photographer, I greatly prefer a system that puts its
users in control, rather than forcing everyone into a single path that the
designers believe is in their best interest.

~~~
icebraining
"Illusion of control". It's more a way to tell the user that the photographer
doesn't want it to be shared than an actual control.

------
joejohnson
To call linking to a copyrighted work piracy is a stretch.

~~~
icebraining
Apparently, Pinboard copies the actual image to their servers and serves from
there. Barring fair use or a license, it's copyright infringement.

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artursapek
All those resources and they use an alert()?

~~~
spullara
The alert is from the Pinterest bookmarklet.

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Tangaroa
Flickr respects the wishes of its users. So?

If they had gone the other way, the headline could be "Flickr allows stealing
of artist work".

~~~
andyfleming
I'm not sure about all that.

They could easily respond to an article like "Flickr allows stealing of artist
work" by adding "nopin" later.

However, I don't disagree with their intention. It is nice that they are
considering the user in that way.

Maybe a better implementation would be for it to be a preference, rather than
assuming. They could have an option like "prevent users from posting my photos
to other websites".

~~~
spullara
They do have that option. The photos they are protecting have that option set.
On their settings page:

<http://www.flickr.com/account/privacy/>

They have a setting that says "Allow others to share your stuff". If you have
marked it No, it cannot be shared to Pinterest. Seems pretty straightforward
to me.

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ricardobeat
This is stupid. Are we starting over again?

Just don't provide a high quality version if you are selling it. This kind of
blocking is just annoying as any other DRM and will certainly be side-stepped
by end users.

~~~
silentOpen
Blocking? This is just a gentleman's agreement to respect the author's wishes.
Does Pinterest include attribution?

~~~
djloche
Agreed - if my images on flickr are set to NOT allow sharing, Flickr
implementing solutions to prevent people from sharing these easily is a good
thing. Attribution or not, if you've set your images to not allow sharing,
sharing it expressly goes against the creators wishes.

Compare: google (or any third party) using tracking cookies when your settings
say otherwise & expressly told your browser not to allow it.

~~~
jrockway
Your rights as a content creator are limited by law, and it's unfair for
content creators to use technical means to circumvent the public's right to
their content.

(I say this as an author of one of those dead-tree things, and of much
software. I'd like people to follow my license agreement, but some in some
cases copyright law grants my users more rights than the license, and I
respect that.)

~~~
jamesaguilar
I dunno if I agree with this. Yes, the public has rights to the content
described and limited by law. No, there is no provision in the law that
requires content creators to make copying easy, nor is there any provision
preventing them from making it as difficult as they can.

Also, I doubt that all of Pinterest users' use cases are protected. Depending
on the proportion, it might be more apt to say that these content owners are
proactively protecting their content from unprotected uses, rather than
resorting to the courts or DMCA.

Edit: wow, this is an incredibly contentious topic. Never seen this density of
downvotes in a thread before.

~~~
hxa7241
> nor is there any provision preventing them from making it as difficult as
> they can

Whilst that might be accurate in the detail of the law, it appears to contain
something basically malfunctional.

It seems to render the law effectively meaningless. If you are _actually
prevented_ from doing something, what has happened to your right to be allowed
to? If there were public rights-of-way across someone's farmland, but they
built walls around it, there would seem to be some kind of problem. (Or maybe
a better example would be a visibility-cloaking device that made it _look_
like there was a wall -- is that prevention, or just making things less easy?
Does that make it OK?)

If the letter of the law supports the frustration of the intent of the law,
something is wrong, surely.

~~~
jamesaguilar
I don't really think so. There are a lot of other laws like this. For example,
you have the right, according to law, to take pictures of people in their
homes, provided you stand on public ways and are not harassing them. When
people pull the shutters, is that malfunctional?

There's also a difference between a positive right (the government protects
your right to do something) and a negative one (the government will not
prevent you from doing something). Fair use seems to be a negative right --
the government does not prevent you from using copyrighted works. But it
doesn't require that copyright owners convey these works to you as
conveniently as you want.

~~~
hxa7241
Yes, but what is the basic _intent_? It is to make/keep things reasonably
available (in the constitution (USA) and/or the standard economic view) . . .

------
potatolicious
I just pinned a bunch of my own images today. Flickr, _don't tell me what I
can and can't do with content I created myself_.

~~~
atarian
How do you expect Flickr to differentiate from you and someone else who wants
to rip off your content?

~~~
snsr
> How do you expect Flickr to differentiate from you and someone else who
> wants to rip off your content?

Any photographer or artist who _really_ doesn't want their images shared
should not make them available on the internet. Period. Given the capabilities
of current computing platforms, there exists no method by which you can
restrict redistribution.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

~~~
true_religion
Er... just because you can't prevent something by technical means, doesn't
mean you shouldn't try to prevent it by social means.

For example: There's no technical way I can prevent you from slandering me,
short of preventing all of your speech. However if you do slander me, and I
find out about it then I can take you to court.

The nopin setting just enforces a gentlemans agreement between Pinterest and
the site in question. If the Pinterest user really wants to share that
picture, all they have to do is copy the link and do it manually.

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cft
Looks like the Hollywood war on the Silicon Valley is gaining steam. We are a
large chat/IM provider, not directly involved in any copyright-able content
and the last 5-6 months have been exceptionally hard in the amount of bullying
from MPAA and the likes because of their complaints about LINKS and other
things- often plain text where users just talk about copyrighted materials!

~~~
k-mcgrady
What does Flickr have to do with Hollywood? They are using a method Pinterest
provides so that people can't pin copyrighted content. A feature users who own
copyrighted content most likely are happy they implemented.

