Pinterest revisited...

After my rather heated little rant earlier this month about Pinterest I thought I better clear the air about how I'm feeling about it.

This week Pinterest sent an email stating that they were updating their terms and also The Window Seat have updated their involvement in the matter with a clear post about these changes.

 Essentially Pinterest have made one change to their terms
 they won't be selling your images.
I think its fantastic that they changed this - I didn't think they were anyway but as I said before, just because it was unlikely, it doesn't make it right and it wasn't hard for them to remove a term that they didn't actually need, so some brownie points for them for listening to that concern.

However, everything else is still essentially the same - when you upload an image under the terms
 you still either claim to own the content, or it is content that you or Pinterest will not get in trouble for using.

This is still the game changer for me - to use Pinterest correctly, the only images that I would be 100% sure that I could use/pin, would be my own... and I don't want to use it like that. A lot of people commented on my last post that Pinterest is a great tool for bloggers - just like other sites - and I agree - if you use it correctly and for your own promotion in a tasteful way, it is a great tool.

But I don't want a marketing tool for my blog - I want a site where I can bookmark things that I find on the internet without claiming these images as my own or risking myself, or negatively affecting the rightful image owner in any way.

One statement from The Window Seats response was:

"Pinterest provides an online platform for sharing content, and you must be comfortable with the possible risk that comes with using the site."  Kyle from The Window Seat

And after much consideration, I'm not really comfortable with Pinterest or the risks that come with it anymore. I had a go at pinning just my images last week but it felt silly, all my photos are on Flickr, or on here... having them in another place just seemed pointless to me.

I think the real reason that I'm so upset about Pinterest is that it felt so right.... it felt safe, it was fun, I had everything I wanted in one place, I enjoyed pinning the things that I had found to share with people (I rarely repinned, it's not as much fun as finding things yourself is it...) and I felt like I was doing everything correctly but I wasn't.

In many ways I know that I'm quite idealistic, I want the internet to be nice, I want people to respect other people's property (digital or otherwise), I want to see credit where credit is due... but the world isn't always like that, I can't control people and neither can Pinterest so I understand that they have to cover their own backs (everyone does these days right) but honestly, I don't like it...

However, I can control my own actions, so I won't be pinning anymore. Whilst this seems to be a topic about law and risk, for me this is also about morals and what's right and wrong and although the risks may be lower now, it still doesn't feel right to me anymore... which is a shame.


Note: Carrie has asked me if I mind people pinning my images and weirdly, I don't mind that at all (especially now that Pinterest can't sell them) but if you do, please do credit back to my blog - the law in the UK states that 'The law gives the creators of literary, dramatic, musical, artistic works, sound recordings, broadcasts, films and typographical arrangement of published editions, rights to control the ways in which their material may be used.' automatically and I am happy for my images to appear on the Pinterest site. I would not be happy however if they were edited/sold/misused/reprinted so please pin responsibly :)  If you are happy with your pinning morals, then so am I!

Note 2: The above note may change if this comes about... that would be bad.