There has been lots of buzz about the relatively new social network Pinterest in the last few weeks. Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board (pin board) whereby users can find interesting images and videos, and pin them to their own boards. Boards are made up of related pins.
The visual element of Pinterest is what attracts most. Browsing through thousands of pins is a visual pleasing and inspiring experience. It is no wonder why many artists like Pinterest.
But things are not so hunky dory in Pinterest-land. They have come under some scrutiny recently because of people pinning licensed and copyrighted images without permission.
Their own TOS states that that users should only pin photos and videos that they have ownership over, or have been given the right to pin. But, it is quite obvious that most pinners have not been doing that.
Should you be worried about your artworks being pinned to Pinterest, or inadvertently pinning others without permissions?
We recently posted an article about how artists can take advantage of this site to promote their art: Pinterest Art
In it we examined how to include copyright info and credit links. We would like to recommend a further step… watermarking.
Although watermarking may be bi-passed by removing it in Photoshop, most do not go through the trouble. Always include copyright information for images posted online.
Pinterest is a great source of traffic, but we should always be concerned about our images being credited to us or violating copyrights of others.
Pinterest Code for Websites to Block Pinning, etc.
Here are some things to consider when pinning:
If you do not want others sharing your artwork from an artist website, use the snippet of code provided by Pinterest to block pinning.
Paste this inside the header tags of your website:
<meta name=”pinterest” content=”nopin” />
From now on, whenever someone tries to pin one of your artworks, a popup with the above message appears.
Many artists do not want their art shared, especially those who have artwork licensed.
Only pin your own artworks, or those you have been given permission to share.
Before posting an image from another website, look for the Pin It button.
By the way, you do have permission to pin anything from this website, except the artist spotlights. For those, visitors should get permission from the artists themselves.
- To see who has pinned artworks from your own artist website, please visit:
http://pinterest.com/source/YOURSITE.com
Fill in “YOURSITE.com” with your own website, without the “http://www”, in this format: artpromotivate.com
Friendsheet - Pinterest Styled Facebook Albums
If you like the visual style of Pinterest, you will like Friendsheet for Facebook. With this app, Facebook albums and photos from friends are displayed in a visual style similar to Pinterest.
Friend Sheet has been endorsed with a Facebook like from Mark Zuckerberg himself.
- Go to Friendsheet and login with Facebook
- Click the blue Go to App button on the next page, then select Allow to grant permissions.
- Enjoy reviewing your Facebook photos, both from Facebook albums and friends in Pinterest style!
How do you block Pinterest postings fro Facebook and Flickr?
ReplyDelete@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteFlickr automatically blocks pinning that is not set to public, or does not have the pin it button.
I just tested the pin it button on Facebook as well, and a popup similar to the one above prevented me from pinning...
Re: Pinterest. Stealing work is not okay but I think the original idea was to provide links to interesting sites that we want to revisit and share with others who have similar interests. It should be a win-win situation but it fails when images link back to Google or Bing and not the original site. Having a Pin It button on your site guarantees the link back. When done properly, it can send a lot of new people your way. It would probably cut down on a lot of theft if Google and Bing etc did not have image galleries for photos without a Creative Commons licence.
ReplyDelete@Alexandra/SilverGenes
ReplyDeleteThanks, both of you.