Thursday, December 27, 2012

Be careful what you "Pin" for, interest deleted

pinterest_screen
(Photo credit: Ruth Tsang)
I found an interest I love to do online.  I am a Pinterest phonatic (no this is not a typo, I had to find something to go with the word Pinterest).
The concept is pretty simple, you see an item you like, you pin it to the board (on their site of course), others see what you pinned, and they may want to re-pin it.  It is kind of like if Twitter and Instagram had a love child and named it Pinterest ( cue baby lullaby music): "Aw, such as cute little social media child.  It has it's mother's looks and it's father's short attention span."  OK, enough with the social media jokes.
Anyway, I was reading my email (yes I still have those things), and I got a note from them saying that they had to remove one of my pins due to copyright infringement.  "Oh it was nothing I did" they said, It was against a person who either pinned it from the beginning, or they re-pinned it from someone else who did the pinning.  Something to that effect.  In fact, I got two of those nastagrams.  (my word, do not look it up, it means a nasty email).
Here is my question:  If you (the guys who thought of this concept) have this wonderful site, which is a big hit, how can you forget there is a copyright law that as old as dirt?  They should know how people are.  After all, don't they have a Facebook account?   The folks in Washington are all over this, and would love to see courts active in slapping fines on people and shutting down sites that do not adhere to the laws of the land, especially something so trivial as a copyright law.  I got a pinterest account, because I read that I can push products on my boards, someone might see them, and will go to my website to make a purchase.  So as an Independent Longaberger Home Consultant and owner of MDN Creates (soon to be P.Lynn Designs), of course I jumped at the chance, and Longaberger did not have a problem with me placing the products on the board. So, as far as obeying the copyright law, I am good as gold, but I now need to watch what I pin from other places.  So far, only one was problem,it has been pulled, and that originally photo came from Photobucket.  "Wait a minute."  "They sent me an email back in the summer saying that they were shutting down."  "Does that mean they are back in business?"  I cancelled my account because of that announcement.  Well if they going to hold claim to pictures I take, then I do not need them.
Anyway, You no way of knowing if the picture on cats.com forbids you from pin a cute little kitten from their site, so it is always best to take your own pictures, create a blog, and pin it that way.  The best way is look for copyright information on the owner's blog or website.  If it says no copying except for personal use, just limit that copy it to your computer.  I know we all like to share, but it is the only way that you can keep the nastagrams out of your inbox.  You are going to forget, just like me, because we are human.   Just be on point and keep it real.  Re-pinning takes on a whole new meaning, and just trust your gut on this one.  Just ask yourself if it is worth sharing to your group of friends.
Over all, just be careful what you do on the internet everyday, rather it is your stuff or someone else's stuff out there, and you want to share it to the world.   Remember, know what accounts you have, because people can also send you a phishing notice about an account you do not have or once had, or they can be from the country of Niagara claiming to be the royal overseer to the king of many lying eyes, who have decided to to give you over a quarter of billion dollars of snake oil.  You need to claim it fast.    DO NOT CLICK ON THAT EMAIL!!!!. Be safe, Be Blessed, and have a wonderful evening.

P.S:  Document and give credit to the person or site you got it from always works too.

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3 comments:

  1. Good post! We do need to use due diligence when deciding whether to pin, repin or not. All in all, I love Pinterest, think it's a great concept and have even made sales as a result of using it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. pinning is wrong, incorrect period unless you ASK the site/artist/owner period

    ReplyDelete

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