Adam D Photography wrote:
wonder how many people AGAINST pintrest download movies, music, software, etc.. via torrents LOL

that.  and use copyrighted music in their behind the scenes videos......

DougBPhoto wrote:
It is disappointing that on a site primarily made up of photographers and llamas, that SO many people have so little respect or concern for intellectual property, not just your own, but all of ours.

While today it may not be your property (or the property of a photographer you have worked with) tomorrow it may be your images (or images that you contributed to) that are being stolen.

Okay, you may not care if your neighbor's house across the street is being stolen from, or the house to the right of you, or the house to the left of you, but one of these days it WILL be your house.

Why sit around and say that it is no big deal UNTIL they come to your house to take your property.

Be a professional and stand up for all of our rights, and it does not matter if you think your images (or my images) are worth anything, it IS important to stand up and protect all of our property.

Yes... Stolen is one thing. Reposted by someone who liked it is another. I'm against theft, but I'm not going to rush out and scream at people every time they look at my neighbors house. Extreme action is as bad as extreme apathy.

Al Zuniga wrote:
MyFreeCopyright wrote:
MyFreeCopyright.com provides a third-party, non-repudiation, registered dating of your original digital creation. By using this service, you publicly associate your digital copyright and defined rights to you.

MyFreeCopyright

While the intention of MyFreeCopyright is good, the intention is misleading. Here is what one IP Attorney said that service: The basic thing is that service does absolutely nothing for your copyright. The only way to get full protection is to register your copyrights with the copyright office. Your copyrights if registered with them your copyrights may end up INVALID in court. To be on the safe side register directly with the US Copyright office. http://www.copyright.gov

helleborine wrote:

I do this already, and IT DOES NOT WORK on any of my websites.  They are straight out lying about this; they even sent me an email telling me that this would work, and it quite clearly does not.

That does not surprise me.  And I am smelling a fraud case/suit on this.

Brian Diaz wrote:
That is as effective as disabling right clicking to stop people from downloading your images from the web.  People can still pin photos to their boards just by saving the photo and uploading them. 

The difference is that when a photo is uploaded directly, there's no link back to the original source.  When a photo is pinned the standard way, the link is always preserved.

And the nopin tag only works when you're pinning from a page with metadata.  It won't work if the pinner views the image directly.  For example, let's say that MM had the nopin tag on portfolio pages.  You wouldn't be able to pin this page:
https://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/pic/5393736

But you WOULD be able to pin this:
https://photos.modelmayhem.com/photos/0 … 74bf86.jpg

The link would go to the jpg file with no link to my portfolio.

In those ways, the nopin metatag doesn't stop pinning, but it does stop Pinterest from driving traffic to your site.

I already know and agree with you.  The no-pin code is extremely lame.  It is Pintrest's way of deflecting the backlash in the eyes of the media.  Eventually someone will have it shut down.  Just send the DMCA Takedowns to Amazon and they will comply since Pintrest content resides on Amazon servers.

Source:  Bill of Rights for all Creative People  http://artists-bill-of-rights.org/news/ … e-changed/

michaelGIORDANO wrote:

That does not surprise me.  And I am smelling a fraud case/suit on this.

On your site's (through your host) control panel, there is usually a place to disallow hotlinks. And there should be a place to disallow it by ip and/or domain.

P O T T S wrote:
On your site's (through your host) control panel, there is usually a place to disallow hotlinks. And there should be a place to disallow it by ip and/or domain.

True...that is actually a good idea. Doing that now.  However, I must allow linking, due to keeping my images on my server and not on Facebook or any other site I may utilize in the future.

UPDATE:  This is the IP that came up for Pinterest: 23.21.216.42
But on the whois lookup this IP was listed:  107.20.135.162

michaelGIORDANO wrote:
True...that is actually a good idea. Doing that now.  However, I must allow linking, due to keeping my images on my server and not on Facebook or any other site I may utilize in the future.

UPDATE:  This is the IP that came up for Pinterest: 23.21.216.42
But on the whois lookup this IP was listed:  107.20.135.162

You can also work it the other way, where you tell it what IP's to allow hot linking. So if you want to hot link back and forth to your own sites, advertising sites, etc, you can. You just tell it which ones to do.

Of course, the other plan of attack would simply be to join pintrest and uplaod your own images with your copyright watermark emblazened across the image. at least that way if it does get shared, so does your info.

Mnemosyne Photography wrote:
Funny. I've been seeing lots of Ansel Adams photos on these sites lately.

20C wrote:
His images are all over the web. Its not likely lately either. Probably some of the first to ever make it to the web since the invention of the browser. In any case, was just an article I read. Like your work, btw...

This raises another point.

I don't make any money from web sized photographs.  I make my money, largely, by selling prints (at least insofar as anything I publish on the web goes).  So if I post a small 72dpi photo, there's nothing really you can do with it that would constitute "stealing" from me, as no one buys that from me - they buy a 20"x25" (or larger) print from me.

I'm still a strong advocate of photographers' rights, copyright and IP rights in general and I'm not suggesting those laws be weakened, just demonstrating that different types of photographers are going to view the issue somewhat differently.  If I were a celebrity photographer who sold digital content to on-line publishers, I would feel very, VERY differently than I would if I were a landscape photographer selling silver prints.

KevinMcGowanPhotography wrote:
Said it before and will say it again..

If you want to truly look at copyright infringement, look at Facebook..

You've said it before and you were wrong before.

Paramour Productions wrote:
I don't make any money from web sized photographs.  I make my money, largely, by selling prints (at least insofar as anything I publish on the web goes).  So if I post a small 72dpi photo, there's nothing really you can do with it that would constitute "stealing" from me, as no one buys that from me - they buy a 20"x25" (or larger) print from me.

They may not  'buy' your 72dpi image from you, but that doesnt necessarily mean that not making money from you!

Considering my recent discoveries of what is happening with some of my images, Im starting to question where I go from here!
I consider myself very much the amateur  both in terms of how much I still have to learn as a photographer, and in trying to get myself noticed as such.
I have considered the internet a great way of networking ... until now.

Recently I was contacted by another photographer from a German photo-sharing site I used to use a few years back, he told me that a photo of mine was being used on the front page of a swingers site. I decided to check it out and found that this site was actually the least of my worries... my photo was available for download at 65meg on 17 free wallpaper sites, on blogs, and was even turned into some horrendous twinkling gif. In fact Pintrest seems to be the only site where I didnt find it.
It 'appears' to be a front cover on a magazine, but I havent chased that up as Im told the language is Sri Lanken and I cant translate it, also Im not really sure if it was just a mock-up by the blogger as the pic of it is too small to tell.

I have since found another of my older images being used to advertise carnivals and masked balls again, on foreign sites with languages I cant understand... my copyright gone and exif data stripped.
I have NEVER uploaded that image at any more than 72dpi.

On the photography forums I use, Ive been told to 'hit them with invoices' and to 'go get em', well that seems easier than it seems, at least from here in the UK to someone abusing my copyright the other side of the world.

Urgh! Ive just been Tweeted that one of my  images is uploaded to Pintrest by a local 'Dr Sketchy's'. It wasnt a paid shoot but, a collaboration with me

Paramour Productions wrote:
I don't make any money from web sized photographs.  I make my money, largely, by selling prints (at least insofar as anything I publish on the web goes).  So if I post a small 72dpi photo, there's nothing really you can do with it that would constitute "stealing" from me, as no one buys that from me - they buy a 20"x25" (or larger) print from me.

I think you're looking at it wrong. I see what Pinterest is doing is nothing more than petty larceny. Say you are a painter. You paint a beautiful portrait of a field of flowers and then create lithographs of that image. Someone then breaks into your house, takes the lithos, and sells them on eBay. As far as I'm concerned, the same thing is happening here, only they are painting over your signature as the artist and then mass-replicating the lithographs and selling those too and, of course, not paying you for it.

So while Pinterest is not selling your 72 dpi photos, they sure as hell are making revenue on the site using YOUR work as the catalyst for the traffic.

P O T T S wrote:

On your site's (through your host) control panel, there is usually a place to disallow hotlinks. And there should be a place to disallow it by ip and/or domain.

Of course, hotlink protection is enabled - but Pinterest does not hotlink.  I repeat: DOES NOT HOTLINK.  They grab the images and host them on their own servers.

Shot By Adam wrote:

I think you're looking at it wrong. I see what Pinterest is doing is nothing more than petty larceny. Say you are a painter. You paint a beautiful portrait of a field of flowers and then create lithographs of that image. Someone then breaks into your house, takes the lithos, and sells them on eBay. As far as I'm concerned, the same thing is happening here, only they are painting over your signature as the artist and then mass-replicating the lithographs and selling those too and, of course, not paying you for it.

So while Pinterest is not selling your 72 dpi photos, they sure as hell are making revenue on the site using YOUR work as the catalyst for the traffic.

Okay, lets get this out of the way.  Copyright infringement is not theft.  No one has deprived you of your files.  They have made unauthorized copies.  Theft means that you no longer have your files.  Infringement is illegal, but it is not theft.

michaelGIORDANO wrote:
Here is a full list of Pinterest clones which I have added some of their domains to my list of IP Deny.

I expect denying IPs in .htaccess will not work either, since the IPs in your logs are those of the visitors, not of the referrer. 

Do you want to know how slippery Pinterest is?  You can't even block it as a referrer, because they identify themselves as no-referrer, and user-agent only, when someone pins.  Like a bot or spider, except unlike a legitimate bot or spider, Pinterest also ignores the robots.txt directive.  And although I tried to block them as User-Agent in .htaccess, that does not work either.

Their intentions are not good.

P O T T S wrote:
No. The current Napster generation, the 20-30 somethings raised on it, for some reason believe if its digital, it is theirs to be shared. From movies, to songs, to pcitures and art work. By buying a car, are we inviting people to steal it? Can we control everything that happens to a posted image? Probably not. But a website created with the sole purpose of encouraging people to go steal and repost other people's work with out permission?

Someone said that pintrest was the Walmart of the web shutting down business. Not in my area. Walmart will not print pictures that appear to be taken by a professional without a release from the photographer.

_______________________________________________________________-

Now a question - how do you guys find your work on pintrest? to you tin-eye it?

The napster generation is right. We no longer live in the industrial age. Business models and the laws that protect them have to change so the economy can thrive and make the most of the new tech.

When it comes to the business of creating images, the internet is not the biggest market, but the biggest billboard. If more photographers understood this, we would have less images of value floating around the web and we would have less photographers with entitlement issues bitching and moaning for a boat that sailed years ago.

KevinMcGowanPhotography wrote:
Said it before and will say it again..

If you want to truly look at copyright infringement, look at Facebook..

So you're saying you've never read their Ts and Cs or are you talking about something else?

helleborine wrote:
Hi all,

I'm a graphic artist that creates graphic-based craft instructions.  My websites have advertising, and I work everyday to create new free graphical contents for my websites.  The success of this advertising is directly proportional to the volume of traffic that my websites receive.  I have been living off this model for the past 9 years.  For me, not to put my material "out there" isn't an option.

I recently found a lot of my work being pinned and re-pinned on Pinterest.  At first, I was flattered that people liked my images so much.  Then I saw that Pinterest was showing full-size copies of my graphics!  After checking my web logs, however, my heart really sank.  I saw that Pinterest didn't bring any traffic to my sites.  It may be different for other  websites, but for me, Pinterest users looked at my images on the Pinterest site, and that was enough.  They didn't follow through to my site.

Pinterest is sucking my traffic, and by extension my income, and my hard work.

They have no right to post full-size images.  I'll accept thumbnails, as thumbnails are considered fair use (this was settled for Google Images).  But full-size is not good for me.

Pinterest is just another Wal-Mart killing the mom & pop corner store.

Everyday, I take some time to scour the site for infringements, and file DMCA take-down notices.  I am documenting this.  In a few months, I hope to be able to sue them.

The question is why full-size images of your work are available in the internet. If somebody took them against your will from your hard drive then you have all the right to be angry. But if you posted them to the internet yourself then the only person to blame here is you. You as the creator are the first and main responsible of protecting your content.

Al Lock Photography wrote:

Let's say you do.

Your child runs away, so you chase her or him, leaving your notebook computer at a restaurant table. When you come back, your notebook is gone. Are you claiming that no crime has been committed?

The only people I ever see trying this sort of argument are the ones that pirate themselves. Do  you qualify?

Read again my posts. I specifically made a distinction between having something taken against your will and not protecting your valuables properly because of naivety.

A R M wrote:
The napster generation is right. We no longer live in the industrial age. Business models and the laws that protect them have to change so the economy can thrive and make the most of the new tech.

When it comes to the business of creating images, the internet is not the biggest market, but the biggest billboard. If more photographers understood this, we would have less images of value floating around the web and we would have less photographers with entitlement issues bitching and moaning for a boat that sailed years ago.

It would seem clear that there are large segments of our business that you don't understand and apparently don't have any interest in understanding.

I guess, if it does not impact you personally in a negative way, then who cares, it is no big deal and everyone else should just learn to deal with it... regardless of if you understand the impacts these things have on other people or not.

I think there is an old saying about when standing up for rights even when you're not being personally impacted, because if you wait UNTIL they come after YOUR rights, it may be entirely too late.

Billboards are great, but they are not normally fraught with people stealing them, copying them and using them without the owner's permission.  That's just for starters.

Rather than assuming you know everything, perhaps you would consider learning a bit more about what you're talking about before jumping into name calling mode.

DougBPhoto wrote:

It would seem clear that there are large segments of our business that you don't understand and apparently don't have any interest in understanding.

I guess, if it does not impact you personally in a negative way, then who cares, it is no big deal and everyone else should just learn to deal with it... regardless of if you understand the impacts these things have on other people or not.

I think there is an old saying about when standing up for rights even when you're not being personally impacted, because if you wait UNTIL they come after YOUR rights, it may be entirely too late.

Billboards are great, but they are not normally fraught with people stealing them, copying them and using them without the owner's permission.  That's just for starters.

Rather than assuming you know everything, perhaps you would consider learning a bit more about what you're talking about before jumping into name calling mode.

At some point scribes fought for their rights too. I might be wrong, but I think the world has moved on from that debate. I am not concerned about the future of photography. We live in a visual world and there will always be a demand for quality images. There will always be photographers making a living of it. They will be a minority compared to other professions though. Sorry for not showing more empathy but there is a reason why I chose IT as my carrer path and photography as my hobby and not the other way.

Uh, and I have not called names anybody.

A R M wrote:

At some point scribes fought for their rights too. I might be wrong, but I think the world has moved on from that debate. I am not concerned about the future of photography. We live in a visual world and there will always be a demand for quality images. There will always be photographers making a living of it. They will be a minority compared to other professions though. Sorry for not showing more empathy but there is a reason why I chose IT as my carrer path and photography as my hobby and not the other way.

Uh, and I have not called names anybody.

Well, then I guess we should not have much empathy when you lose your IT job, or have to make less money for doing the same job, because it is not our problem either.

Maybe we should find some hobbyists who can do your job and send them to your boss, cause ya know, why should WE care about YOUR ability to keep making a living and providing for your family.

If you don't like name calling, what term would you apply to telling people to stop their bitching and moaning?

DougBPhoto wrote:
Well, then I guess we should not have much empathy when you lose your IT job, or have to make less money for doing the same job, because it is not our problem either.

Maybe we should find some hobbyists who can do your job and send them to your boss, cause ya know, why should WE care about YOUR ability to keep making a living and providing for your family.

That will not happen anytime soon because a) In the information age IT professionals are in the highest demand and b) IT is not exactly a popular hobby. Sure, some people like messing up with their computer, I just do not see thousands of them buying tools and certification courses and joining IT mayhem.

DougBPhoto wrote:
If you don't like name calling, what term would you apply to telling people to stop their bitching and moaning?

I call it "telling it like it is". Would you prefer "whining and complaining"? I refered to photographers as "photographers" so, not name calling.

Neil Snape wrote:
Really, anyone that posts there should know that it's a portal for blasting images everywhere.

I won't, go there, I already have pictures here and on FB.

I will say that knowingly posting to Pinterest, you are allowing and encouraging inappropriate use of your images.

That be your choice>

+1

My sentiments precisely. I recall mentally considering pinterest when I first heard about it, and the way it works goes against everything a working photographer idealizes. Goes against the entire concept of licensing images! And if you aren't selling licensed images, then what? Either getting hired like I do to cover events, which I'm not allowed to distribute without the designer/promoters' big-assed logo on it. So inthat case, pinterest WORKS. When the shooter posts images online regularly with a huge-assed header or footer that is associated with their brand, again it's a winner. When the images are repinned and distributed by who-knows-who who-knows-where, and possibly altered from the original state? Yet, somehow STILL associated with you the shooter? Fuck THAT noise! Pinterest succeeded in awakening an interest in me to show less online, and to hinder online-theft more.

Pinterest is a nightmare! Write that down. The big-mouthed a**hole from Toronto said it, so maybe there's some truth to it

~Danny
http://www.dbiphotography.com/

Mark Laubenheimer wrote:
that.  and use copyrighted music in their behind the scenes videos......

So? Copyrighted music used for commercial purposes, I disagree with. Downloading MP3's from torrents somewhere I once did regularly, for personal use. There's a difference between personal and commercial uses.

The OP is talking about the potential havoc pinterest could cause for working photographers, if potential clients are no longer not only turning to microstock but now outright *stealing* images to use, because they saw an image 'pinned' somewhere that really suited their purposes well. A photographer trying to raise awareness in other photographers to protect our very livelihoods shouldn't be ridiculed.

~Danny
http://www.dbiphotography.com/

DBIphotography Toronto wrote:

So? Copyrighted music used for commercial purposes, I disagree with. Downloading MP3's from torrents somewhere I once did regularly, for personal use. There's a difference between personal and commercial uses.

The OP is talking about the potential havoc pinterest could cause for working photographers, if potential clients are no longer not only turning to microstock but now outright *stealing* images to use, because they saw an image 'pinned' somewhere that really suited their purposes well. A photographer trying to raise awareness in other photographers to protect our very livelihoods shouldn't be ridiculed.

~Danny
http://www.dbiphotography.com/

so you feel stealing is ok as long as it's just for fun? really?

Mark Laubenheimer wrote:

so you feel stealing is ok as long as it's just for fun? really?

Stealing it would entail my actual 'taking' it. If I were taking images or music where it was linked for non-distribution, not cool. Do I condone outright theft? Nah, not particularly. Do I support free distribution of images and music when it's for non-commercial purposes? Yup. The internet is a horror-zone. Once something is online, anything can happen to & with it. Do I support theft and resale? No. For nearly a decade of my life, I was what people refer to as a 'career criminal'. TRUST me, there's a world of difference between stealing re-vinning and selling a $40,000 SUV to an unsuspecting civilian, and ripping-off and re-posting/re-tweeting/re-pinning an image somewhere online. The SUV is a pig on gas, and doesn't get nearly as much distance covered   Be smart. Don't put anything online that isn't watermarked - at least small - don't give out high-res images free, ever (which is idiotic, at best), and most importantly: *never* post anything online that you don't want reproduced by someone, somewhere.

A R M wrote:
The question is why full-size images of your work are available in the internet.

I'm repeating myself here, but don't forget that I am not a pro photographer.  My websites are (1) sponsored by advertising, (2) traffic driven and (3) instructional, and the graphics need to be full-size otherwise they would be useless.

What I have been saying is that reductions in traffic, such as those caused by the vampirical effect of Pinterest, erode my current model of free-content-for-users/money-from-sponsors.

I could switch to selling the content, and remove the advertising.  It makes me a little sad, because I love the free content model, and so do my site visitors.

Or Pinterest could be an honest web-citizen and only show thumbnails.

DBIphotography Toronto wrote:
Do I support free distribution of images and music when it's for non-commercial purposes? Yup.

Pinterest is poised to make billions from this.

Is it a commercial purpose?  Perhaps not for the individual "pinners," but for Pinterest and the hundreds of clones in the pipeline, it's going to be big money.

DBIphotography Toronto wrote:

Stealing it would entail my actual 'taking' it. If I were taking images or music where it was linked for non-distribution, not cool. Do I condone outright theft? Nah, not particularly. Do I support free distribution of images and music when it's for non-commercial purposes? Yup. The internet is a horror-zone. Once something is online, anything can happen to & with it. Do I support theft and resale? No. For nearly a decade of my life, I was what people refer to as a 'career criminal'. TRUST me, there's a world of difference between stealing re-vinning and selling a $40,000 SUV to an unsuspecting civilian, and ripping-off and re-posting/re-tweeting/re-pinning an image somewhere online. The SUV is a pig on gas, and doesn't get nearly as much distance covered   Be smart. Don't put anything online that isn't watermarked - at least small - don't give out high-res images free, ever (which is idiotic, at best), and most importantly: *never* post anything online that you don't want reproduced by someone, somewhere.

how is something linked for non-distribution?

helleborine wrote:

Of course, hotlink protection is enabled - but Pinterest does not hotlink.  I repeat: DOES NOT HOTLINK.  They grab the images and host them on their own servers.

Then just ban their ip's from yoru site.

DBIphotography Toronto wrote:
.... There's a difference between personal and commercial uses.
....

~Danny
http://www.dbiphotography.com/

This is where we will disagree. There is NO difference. Theft of IP is theft of IP. If I steal your car for personal use, that is fine. It is only if I resell it that it becomes wrong?

Why is it ok for someone to rip a copy of music and put it online for everyone to take? I can answer that. It isnt. If a band freely puts music out there and tells everyone to share, that is different.