Traci Knoppe

As with any hot new web site or service, issues seem to crop up all over the place.  Now it’s image copyright issues with Pinterest.  We had similar issues with Facebook in the past (read here and here and here)

Today, I had SandwichINK, one of my followers, contact me via Twitter regarding an article on how your business could get sued using Pinterest.

So I go over and read the Boston Business Journal article.  The gist is they are concerned that if you share any images, you could get sued; because of terminology in Pinterest’s Terms of Service where they state they can sell your content.  Specifically they are referring to this paragraph on the Terms of Service page:

Member Content

We may, in our sole discretion, permit Members to post, upload, publish, submit or transmit Member Content. 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. Cold Brew Labs does not claim any ownership rights in any such Member Content and nothing in these Terms will be deemed to restrict any rights that you may have to use and exploit any such Member Content.

The Boston Business Journal did not quote the very last sentence in the above paragraph which states that Cold Brew Labs doesn’t claim ownership right, nor restrict rights we have to use Member Content.

I view the above Terms of Service quote to mean because we are adding content to the Pinterest web site, they have the right to backup and store those images, they have the right to use them within their service or software to make them available for everyone to see on their site.  Should stand to reason we are using their site to do this, that means we’re utilizing their software to make these images publicly visible, and would have to make copies and/or backup the site.  So they are storing the images to some capacity.

Note this segment of the above TOS:  ”…Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.”  I view this to mean exactly what I just said above, because we’re using their service, they may have to make copies of the images as part of providing us use of their site and service.

As I state in the video above, if you visit a web site, and they have social sharing buttons on the site – you can share the content.  That’s the whole purpose of having those buttons.  Sharing does not constitute you claiming ownership.

If you read Pinterest’s own What is Pinterest? page, it specifically states:

“Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.”  *(emphasis mine)

Pinterest was designed and created for you to share pictures of things you find on web sites and to pin them to boards on their site to share with others.  It says nothing about you having to have created those images yourself; or that by sharing you are stating the images are yours.

Pinterest’s Copyright Policy clearly states they respect intellectual property rights; and will respond if copyright violations are reported to them.  As they should!

But again, I state:  sharing images via pinning is no different than sharing a site link via Digg, Stumbleupon or any other social sharing.

If, however, you are sharing your own blog posts or web pages, and you are using images on those posts/pages that you do not have permission to use, and you are pinning those images on Pinterest, yep – you could get into trouble.

You could get into trouble just for using them on your site without permission; pinning them to Pinterest could simply get you caught quicker/easier.  Just make sure you have permission to use any images you are inserting into your own site content, before you use it and ultimately pin it.

If you are a member of a membership site, or any site you have to log into with a password to gain access to the content, do not share any of the content!  It would be considered proprietary or intellectual property and obviously is for paid members only.  That’s just common sense.

I am quite sure we’ve not heard the last of this.  Until then, continuing pinning. Be mindful of images you use on your site and make sure you have permission to do so.  Then all is good.

To YOUR Success,