Does Pinterest promote plagiarism?

Pinterest, the latest social media website to take the Internet by storm, could find itself caught in a web of copyright issues. The social media site allows users to create ‘pin’ boards where they can share pictures they find interesting.

However a blog post by Kirsten Kowalski, which has gone viral, has raised serious doubts and questions over copyright violations on the site.

Federal copyright laws give the author of any copyrighted work (which includes photographs and copyright attaches automatically as soon as the work is created) the sole and exclusive right to publish and reproduce such work. So, basically, when you see a photograph that you love, you do not have any right to publish or reproduce that photograph unless you took the photo or got consent from the photographer to use the photo.

Kirsten’s post points out a major problem in the Pinterest rules of etiquette. According to the site etiquette, you’re not allowed to self-promote, which means it would be a big no-no for photographers like Kirsten to put up pictures that they’ve taken themselves. But Pinterest also forbids users from putting up photos that don’t belong to them, which is basically anything and everything without a copyright. Now this contradiction means that Pinterest users are in quite a fix because most are just re-pinning or putting up stuff without actually get copyright approval from the owners of the pictures.

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According to TechCrunch Kolawski, soon received a phone call from Pinterest co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann, who acknowledged that Pinterest was “having some growing pains” and vowed that “changes are coming” to the Terms of Use that will make the site better for photographers and users alike.

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For now Pinterest’s dilemma is not entirely unique. Imgur, 9gag and other social media websites also face major copyright issues. Users often photo edit film posters, movie star images, etc. to maybe create a funny meme. Then the post goes viral and many people end up sharing it. The question that then arises is who owns the content to begin with and if the meme creator committed a violation by editing the photo in the first place.

Also is it enough to just credit the original source when re-pinning or sharing a photograph? A lot of photographers might not be happy to find their work being re-pinned on other boards, and logically speaking they are facing copyright violations. It’s not valid to expect everyone to put out their content on the web under creative commons.

Hopefully Pinterest will be able to resolve this issue without too many people leaving the site for copyright reasons.