Panties In A Wad With Pinterest

Pinterest. You gotta love it, or do you? There is so much flack lately coming out for Pinterest. It seems like every single day I follow a new link from twitter to someone’s blog that is raging over what they see as a flaw in Pinterest. A few of the subjects that I have seen lately are;

Asking Pinterest to restrict that number of characters that can be under the pin so that people have to click on the pin to read the material.
Pinterest doesn’t delete pictures that don’t direct to a source.
People are pinning pictures that they have stolen from other bloggers and are directing the pin to their blog instead of the original owners.
Pinterest replacing affiliate links with their own affiliate links.

At first when I kept clicking on these links usually posted by bloggers that were probably getting major traffic from Pinterest, I was mad. Sometimes it seems like people get upset about nothing. I am proud of those bloggers for using their voice to stand against things that they don’t like. However at the same time, is it worth all the hoopla? Here’s what I think; Pinterest was replacing affiliate links placed by people with their own affiliate links. For non-bloggers, an affiliate link is a link that when you click on a product or buy the product the person that provided the link to that product will get a percentage of the sale. Bloggers use affiliate links to help make money and pinterest was changing it to their own links. Honestly Pinterest encourages people not to pin their own items so if your affiliate link was replaced with their affiliate link that is being hosted on their site without ads when you pinned your own site, let’s not worry about it. Find another social media platform that encourages self promotion, i.e. twitter or facebook, to promote your affiliate links. Pinterest has also now claimed that they are no longer replacing affiliate links with their own links. To be clear, in their Terms of Use it details how you upon signing up for the service, give Pinterest the right to change or modify your links. They are also not changing links that go directly to a blog or page, only ones that lead directly to an advertiser such as Amazon and usually only on links that did not already have an affiliate link. Some people are having an issure with the fact that Pinterest is not disclosing the fact that they have affiliate links. The Federal Trade Commission says that you must disclose affiliate links if you are endorsing the product. Technically Pinterest is not endorsing any products officially. If the pinned picture has the words “awesome” or “amazing” under it than it is the endorsement of the pinner, not of Pinterest. How is Pinterest making money to keep the website ad free now? I have no idea but Pinterest does. If you go to their help section they have recently added a link titled, “how does Pinterest make money?”. They are trying to be more open, let’s cancel the firing squads. Some of the reasons that bloggers are rallying against Pinterest is because it allows people to see their images and easily steal them. Ok, I understand this but the same thing happens with google and other search engines. Several big craft bloggers recently railed against Pinterest simply because they don’t want to place watermarks on their images to keep them from being stolen yet they still have buttons on their site asking people to pin their work. You can’t have the cake and eat it too. Images get stolen, it’s a fact of the web. Just ask the people that were supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) a few weeks ago because they are tired of having their work “stolen”, even though that was a horrible bill that was thankfully deleted. There’s a bakery in Europe that is using one of my cake pictures without crediting me right now and I’m going through the proper channels to have it removed. It’s a fact of the web that images will get stolen. The best thing you can do is learn how to use the resources provided to have that person remove the images from their site. Also if you don’t want your images pinned from your site, you can install code to block people from pinning your images. Problem solved. Let’s not forget; Pinterest is free and a baby when it comes to the web. Yes, it has kinks and skirts the lines of copyright infringement at times. But we all skirt those lines on certain days, without meaning to. It’s a fine line that is blurrier than blurry on what is right and what is wrong when it comes to copy right infringement at times. Obviously there are times when it is extremely wrong and we need to do everything at all times to respect other’s work. But is providing a link to their work that will share it with millions of people around the world and help grow their blog wrong? It’s a big mess, I agree. But the pros of Pinterest for me so heavily outweigh the cons that I’m going to keep on truckin’ with Pinterest. There was an article found here that does perfectly explain your liability in pinning on Pinterest and I love how great the writer did explaining it all. However once again the article was motivated simply by someone getting upset because their work wasn’t given the credit they thought that they deserved (not the writer). Give credit where credit is due and let’s keep our panties out of a wad when it comes to Pinterest, ok? Some of the best articles about the entire Pinterest issues, in my opinion, can be found at LLsocial.com.

So You Want To Be A Blogger? What No One Tells You About Blogging.

Comments

Bree says

February 27, 2012 at 5:53 am

Totally agree!!
Bree says

February 27, 2012 at 6:27 pm

Oh hey, ps- changed my url, I had seen you comment a couple times and just wanted to let you know! 🙂
Robyn says

February 27, 2012 at 9:31 pm

I agree. My beef with Pinterest is the racy photos… More than once, I have been minding my own business, scrolling through, then BAM…a nasty photo…seems they could filter this better. I have complained and reported several…maybe it is just impossible to control? But I love Pinterest other than that…I look at it every day, use it for ideas for homeschooling, projects for Childrens Church, baking, organization, everything. I love it…just hate some of it too:)
- Bobbie says
  
  February 27, 2012 at 9:39 pm
  
  I read somewhere the other day that Pinterest’s office is very small right now since they are actually still in Beta testing, that’s why you have to be invited to join. The report read said that they only have 16 people on staff. I’m sure as they grow they will try to be more on top of the racy stuff since it’s in their Terms of Use not to post those types of photos but right now I’m sure it’s because they are small. Plus it is hard to filter those because with words you can make lists of words that people can’t use or post but images are much harder to control. I hate some of it sometimes too but it is cleaner than a google image search, in my opinion.
Carrie @ The Internet Made Me Do It says

February 28, 2012 at 4:15 am

I completely agree. with your post – it is what it is. But I would also like to point out that the people stealing images are going to steal them with or without Pinterest, so those not wanting to have photos stolen should take the appropriate steps.

I use Pinterest like I used to use my email account – I ‘file’ away all the little internet tidbits I want to save. Sounds crazy – but when I open a pin and it’s not a recipe or tutorial – I get mad. I’m not going to Pinterest to BUY something. I want to know how to make the lampshade, not order it from Amazon. I already know how to do that! I end up deleting the “uncreative” and keep moving on, and I suggest others do the same.
Traci says

March 1, 2012 at 4:59 am

I am a professional photographer and wanted to use Pinterest as a sharing tool so that other could see some of my work. On my website, the right click is easily disabled so that people cannot steal the images. As soon as it is sent to Pinterest it is free game for anyone, which is not ok since the photos are often of clients, their children, etc. I find it strange that a photo sharing site wouldn’t be more conscious of the copyright and privacy issue this can bring about. As far as sharing with Facebook and Google+, you are correct. They can be stolen from there as well. Therefore most photographers will limit their photo posts, and they will also watermark their images. However, it is a bit tacky to have watermarks on every image posted in my blogs and slideshows on my website just so I can safely allow people to “pin” my images to a board. It’s a shame really. This is an interesting form of social media. But, not photographer friendly.