Living in Seattle –that uber liberal city of the Pacific Northwest, I can tell you, racism is alive and kicking as it is in any major city – the defined line between supposed North and South attitude when it comes to racism is murky to say the least. I was born and raised in London – that supposed melting pot of different cultures. Is there racism there? You bet! It’s not just against another color but against a different ethnicity. My last trip home, it was prejudice against Eastern European immigrants. Racism is racism no matter where you live, though the South (such as Montgomery) continues to get a bad rap because it’s easier to quote a “sound bite” than to formulate one’s own opinion and, of course, easier for the North to avoid the question altogether!

“You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services. Accordingly, you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms; and (ii) neither the Member Content nor your posting, uploading, publication, submission or transmittal of the Member Content or Cold Brew Labs’ use of the Member Content (or any portion thereof) on, through or by means of the Site, Application and the Services will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.”

and that’s where things get a bit dicey. the word “and” in between the two points implies that by pinning something you fulfill BOTH requirements (that you either own or have consent to share AND that it doesn’t infringe on ownership), not either/or. by its very nature, us including a “Pin It!” button on our blog implies that we are A-OK with folks pinning from various entries as we are the ultimate copyright holders to the properties set forth for viewing; we can absolutely grant that right. but if we did NOT (because we didn’t have a button or statement declaring we were cool with it), then technically, we have not given permission in any way, shape, or form that our materials are available for use on Pinterest and therefore, a user would be in direct violation of Pinterest’s TOS.

but not every photographer or artist watermarks their works. on more than a handful of things i pinned, i’d often wonder, “who did this? who took this photograph?” or “where did this come from?” and no matter how deeply i drilled down, i could never find an answer. of course, i can’t blame Pinterest for that; clearly at some point, that person’s work was picked up somewhere and got shared elsewhere and then somewhere else and so on.

but artists are very precious with their work, and for good reason. the work doesn’t stop at the shutter click; it doesn’t stop until it’s uploaded for the client to view. and heck, even with US, just because we received that initial payment to create the work doesn’t mean potential future profits don’t remain to be made; there’s always the back end where it may get purchased by a long-distance relative or friend. and while it’s a great thing for one’s work to reach a ton more people we may otherwise never come in contact with, there is the faint feeling of things spinning slightly out of control, not knowing where something may wind up (see above paragraph).

again, i cannot, nor am i trying to, put the onus all on Pinterest to fix any potential problems. the internet is too wild and wooly for them to wrangle in on their own. if nothing else, hopefully people just become more aware that attribution is a massive thing for artists and that even if Pinterest doesn’t do their nifty link back to the original source, that they’ll do so on their own.

Ultimately, if you’re like other wedding photographers I’ve heard about, you get paid for taking the photos and for printing the photos (forgive me if that is an obtuse description). Having your small screen-res photos that won’t print well being shared can only increase your exposure (or, at worse, have no impact at all). The people sharing probably wouldn’t buy the photo for the same reason you glance-and-go when you’re looking at photos. So, if you’re thinking the same way I am, it’s not a problem as long as nobody is impacting your revenue stream. That’s the same reason iStockPhoto will give you a tiny watermarked comp for free.

Now, that doesn’t address the actual copyright issues. If sharing on Pintrest is reproducing, there are clearly copyright issues. I’m not addressing that above. I’ve just had this blog post in the back of my mind all day and figured I’d think-out-loud about it since replying on Twitter doesn’t provide enough characters.

Word.

i just prefer pulling inspiration from something a bit more murky that allows me to make something wholly new. but again- that is JUST ME and i’m kind of an odd duck.