Friday, June 8, 2012

Safe Harbor And The Pinmarklet


The pinmarklet is a gateway to easy copyright-infringement.
Pinterest says so.


Once installed in your browser, the “Pin It” button lets you grab an image from any website and add it to one of your pinboards. When you pin from a website, we automatically grab the source link so we can credit the original creator.
Not a single word educating the users about copyrights, or how to find images from the creative commons. Users are entreated to GRAB ANY IMAGE from ANY WEBSITE. That's it! Pinterest even implies that's it's OK since they are crediting the originator.

Can Pinterest hide behind the safe harbor provision while giving its users a tool to infringe on copyrights, telling its them outright to go forth and use it for illegal activity?

If a user were to be sued for copyright infringement, could turn back and sue Pinterest? Is Pinterest covered by the Terms of Use?

3 comments:

MsLalynn said...

Actually, Pinterest has a whole thing on copyrights and what not on its Terms of Use and instructions for pinning. They also are right up front that you cannot pin from certain websites. It is also specifically stated your illegal pins can (and they do) disappear.

arlee said...

We ALL know that: it still doesn't excuse the outright theft of images by anyone. And they only disappear if the owner complains, not out of any Pinterest doing on its own.

Unknown said...

Here is my blog on how the Pin It button does its job

http://braintechie.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/anatomy-of-pin-it-button-javascript.html