Are you familiar with Pinterest? It's a sort of online bulletin board where you can "pin" images from all over the Internet. I was astounded just how many images taken from Blog (without my knowledge or permission) are posted on Pinterest. I set up an account to do a search (you can't even look at Pinterest without an account, which I hate) and discovered 14 photos from Blog labeled Chilly Hollow. There are probably more with other labels.
I do not like having photos that I have taken or photos that friends have given me to use on Blog posted to Pinterest without folks asking first. I have asked people to remove photos and several have done as I have asked. Pinterest is apparently good about removing photos if you ask the Pinterest account to remove your photos and that doesn't happen.
I loathe Pinterest.
However, not everyone feels the same way.
http://www.needlenthread.com/2013/04/needlenthread-on-pinterest.html
How about you? Is this just another way to get inspired by needlepoint? Am I the only person who doesn't like this happening behind my back?
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
and at http://chstitchguides.blogspot.com
@ Copyright 2013 Jane M. Wood. All rights reserved.
15 comments:
Jane...I wouldn't say I hate Pinterest, I'm just not sure I get it. People are spending hour upon hour scraping through the net to "pin" pictures on a virtual bulletin board? To what end? (Not sure I buy the whole "inspiration" angle...). But, the point of my comment is that Pinterst has some very interesting terms of use agreements in regards to copyright. By using Pinterest, the "pinned" agrees to surrender copyright to the site. An interesting angle, considering virtually none of the "pinners" own the copyright they are surrendering. If anyone wanted to take legal action, the site itself has set things up so that they are released, and the user is on the hook. I personally will not put any of my own images up, and we have sought to have a couple removed. Glad to hear you've had success removing images.
Don, it's a good place to put up photos you want to remember if you are perhaps doing a bathroom remodeling and have ideas you are mulling over. We used to tear photos from magazines and stuff them in an idea file. This is the virtual equivalent I think. But it makes me very uneasy and I hate having to have an account to look at the site just to see that folks have grabbed images from Blog. So I'm sitting on the sidelines, frowning.
I'm with you on this. I had a Pinterest account for less than three months last year. Shut it down just as all my friends were discovering it because I'm very uncomfortable with the terms and conditions of usage. I should probably do what you did and set up an account for monitoring. Sigh.
I don't understanding your reasoning. You post pictures publicly on your blog for folks to see, share (via links) and be inspired by. How is pinterest different? If the pinners are not crediting your blog, that's one thing, but if they are then the "pins" are actually driving traffic to your blog. Isn't the point of a blog to share your opinion publicly? I see no difference between collecting stitch and needlepoint project ideas and a bathroom remodel or garden plan. However, if you are so disgusted by pinterest then set-up your blog to disallow pinning like Barbara Elmore's Stitchography.
I just looked and seems like everything I ever posted is on Pinterest in one way or another. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Most of them aren't crediting my blog as the source. Hmmm....
I didn't know one could set up photos so they couldn't show up on Pinterest. I will look into that. It's one thing to post images oneself (particularly images folks gave me of their work for that purpose) and another to find Blog images somewhere else without your knowledge or permission. I find it creepy somehow but I am not sure I should. It's just a very odd thing to me, Pinterest is, and the copyright issue is one that Pinterest deliberately sidesteps. Images lose their context on Pinterest and no one knows where they come from, so they feel free to exploit them anyway they choose. I guess that's my real issue with Pinterest--there is no context, no ownership, no sense of responsibility.
I guses I look on the good side of things and look at this as a form of flattery - that people consider your pictures worth pinning as inspiration. If they have bad intentions of somehow stealing something from you, they can do that by bookmarking your site and looking at the pictures over and over. I do like Pinterest and have gotten some wonderful inspiration from it. When I had heart surgery last year, I wasn't sure I would ever want to stitch again but seeing all the wonderful finished projects helped spur me on to pick up the needle again and I've renewed my love of it.
I can't really comment on copyright and Pinterest policies. I'm not planning to make or publish a book from what I've pinned and I always reference the source in the pin. I believe at the bottom of each original pin, the website is referenced even if it's not in the description. As someone who lives hundreds of miles from the nearest needlepoint store, pinterest is great for seeing and saving ideas instead of having a huge list of bookmarks and trying to remember why I saved each one or printing every image that maybe I'll use one day. I think it's a compliment that people are "saving" your ideas publicly, as long as you are credited like a bibliography for a thesis. It's a digital age. People rip websites on a regular basis (i.e. Facebook etc), but I'd like to think (perhaps naively) that the folks pinning needlepoint ideas are really more interested in the actual technique/colors schemes/canvases than anything else.
I guess my objection to Pinterest is two-fold. One, it is a huge time burner, and people just get sucked in. I do however, see the virtue of the virtual "idea file," which I sort of do on my own, saving photos to a stick drive, which I've done almost as long as I've had internet access, and long before Pinterest. Two, the copyright and credit issues are just to vague for me, as a designer and copyright holder to stomach. If there was some way for Pinterest to enforce a credit system (making the pinner indicate where the image came from, at least where they got it) it might be different. I believe, but can't say for certain, that is how Tumblr works. If the images aren't credited, then they aren't really doing anyone any good, other than "inspiration."
I like Pinterest. It gives me inspiration and ideas, plus I have found techniques and products I never would have found otherwise. I try to be careful about proper credit when pinning. It also helps to send folks to my blog & website. I don't visit it often though because hours just fly by when I do!
I have definitely posted many pictures from needlepoint blogs on Pinterest. I did not realize that people would be upset and am very sorry if I did upset anyone. I actually thought that pinning someone's work was a good thing for everyone. I try to be very careful to list the blog that the picture came from, the artist who produced the canvas, and any information crediting the stitcher who did the work. I have found many interesting websites and blogs via Pinterest. In terms of the blogger, I thought that I was only increasing traffic on their blogs, which I thought would be a good thing. In terms of the artist, I thought that it encouraged people to search for and buy the canvases pictured, thus benefiting the artist. in terms of the stitcher, it is meant as a compliment for amazing and inspirational stitching. If the stitcher had their name listed on the blog, I thought that meant they were willing to have their name out there on their stitching. When people re-pin a picture, they can edit the information so it may not continue to be adequately referenced but I would hope that re-pinners would not delete identifying information. I have appreciated Pinterest as a filing cabinet for things I used to print out and file. If I am interested in something, I follow the link to the original source (which you can do even if the source is not listed). I have learned to do many things this way and have purchased several products that I had no idea existed.
I was very excited to find your wonderful blog. i do not live near a needlepoint shop where teachers visit and everyone is doing such amazing stitching. Your blog has been wonderful for me.
If you want to disable the ability to pin things from your site, follow the directions here:
http://arenacreative.com/blog/photography/microstock-related/how-to-disable-pinterest-users-from-pinning-your-websites-photos/
(and if the directions make no sense to you, let me know and I can give you a hand)
I use Pinterest a lot for work as a research tool - it lets me look at a ton of potential science activities quickly and then pick and choose what might be of use to me. Because users have pinned an image of the experiment, it makes it a fast research tool. Google is great, but it's hard to tell what you're getting with a google search that just returns text.
And I thought Pinterest changed their policies some time ago regarding the origins of images. I'm pretty sure the original source of pins are maintained nowadays. They weren't when Pinterest first appeared on the scene.
You know I never paid attention to Pinterest until I read Mary Corbett's blog and then thought hmmm, maybe I should. So I had my webmaster; computer expert walk me through it and I created an account. I was blown away and absolutely thrilled to see how many pins came from my blog...and each and every one is credited back to it... mostlyneedlepoint.com
I have it set up so that you can pin right from the blog. Isn't needlepoint all about sharing ideas? and if you are not here to share ideas of your stitching and to inspire people...then why do you spend so much time and so many hours writing your blog?
Geez, Jane, i pinned Chilly Hollow as best needlepoint blog! Sorry...
I saw almost all my posts from my blog and very few gave my site the credit.
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