The Pinterest Controversy

The new hottest Internet photo related social website: Pinterest with 1½ million people per day. People create a “Pin Board” and post their own photos or other people's photos that they like and want to share with their friends. Now get ready, we must all scream “Copyright Infringement!”

After the big cry of copyright infringement, now what? The problem is who will sue? Who has the deep pockets to pay for lawyers for years to come? Nobody is really willing to sink millions of dollars. To get around the copyright infringement, Pinterest now forces people to write a comment before uploading a photo, then they have been advised that the photo becomes “fair use” because of the comments.

So what about us the photographers? Many photographers say that we should stand together to fight against the copyright infringements? We are talking about the same photographers who would walk all over you to get the next job, the next assignment, the next bid,

As far as I'm concerned, the real question is:

Is Pinterest good for me or is Pinterest bad for me?

  • If you are a portrait photographer, my inclination would be that Pinterest is potentially more good for you than it is bad for you.
  • If you are a photographer that sells screen savers, my inclination would be that Pinterest is more bad for you than it is good for you.
  • If you are a commercial photographer, my inclination would be that Pinterest is more good for you than it is bad for you. Especially if it is a photo editor/art director that uses your photos for their board. That would be fantastic advertising.
  • If you are landscape photographer selling print my inclination would be that Pinterest is more good for you than it is bad for you.
  • If you are landscape photographer selling downloads my inclination would be that Pinterest is more bad for you than it is good for you.

Myself, I'm not on Pinterest. I don't have the time and the energy to chase after another social media. You can track your photos on Pinterest by going to:

http://pinterest.com/source/yourdomainname.com

and replacing the yourdomainname.com with your website. I have found 3 photos of mine on Pinterest.

  • Some people claimed that the prosperity of the modern world come from the copyrights and the intellectual properties. They use a syllogism: item 1 is…, item 2 is… therefore here is a wacky conclusion.

    For example, we know that everybody breathes. We also know that everybody will die. Therefore breathing causes death. So the conclusion must be: let's stop breathing to avoid death.

  • BTW, there are some technical ways to stop other websites from downloading your photos. Ask you webmaster about .htaccess and the user_agent.