dear Pinterest, I really loved you.
You were perfect for keeping track of tutorials,
recipes, wish lists and just plain gorgeous inspiration.
But I decided to delete my account today.
I read this post a couple of weeks ago,
and it opened my eyes to the problems that could come up
when using Pinterest the way that I {and many others!} do.
I didn't pin my own photos {I thought that would be too much self-promotion,
which is frowned upon}, and then I find out that you aren't supposed to pin photos
unless you own them or have permission from the owner.
Oh. Oops.
However, I didn't actually decide to delete my account until I saw this post this morning.
Retta shared this website, and that's when I decided to go ahead & delete.
It's a website that will allow you to get your Pinterest boards printed in a book or a poster.
I'm not an expert, but I know that's not right. They aren't your pictures!
To me, pinning something pretty so you can go back to it later is a lot different
than pinning it so you can get a pretty book/poster printed.
I'd encourage you to read through the posts I linked to.
If you want to keep your Pinterest account/boards, that is totally fine!
I think you have to make your own decisions about it.
But, it is good to be informed, to know the issues that could come up because of it.
So Pinterest, I hope someone comes up with a solution someday soon,
because I will really miss having you as a resource.
But until then, I'll just be utilizing my bookmarks bar a lot more than I used to.
P.S. Ashley from After Nine to Five posted about this today, too,
if you'd like to read her take on it.
4 comments:
I deleted mine last month & shortly after was contacted by local newspaper. They wanted to interview me about pointerest. When I said I'd deleted my account, they said they'd never even heard about it from this angle even after interviewing many others!! I think the story is running soon. :)
I will be right behind you. I plan on deleting my boards and starting new, being conscious of what I pin. Particularly only to pin what I own or have permission for. It is such a bummer that simply having a legitimate source isn't enough. I try to avoid pinning photos that I can't trace already, though I know I fail at that too!
Needless to say, I'm going to take it as a bit of a challenge. I'm taking a blog break during this last week or so of tax season. When I come back I plan on refocusing on taking my own photos and really reaching out to people through the blog {such as, talking to an etsy seller before featuring their stuff, etc}. I'm keeping my empty Pinterest around as a reminder to keep me motivated.
On that note, now that people have "Pin it" buttons on their blogs... does that count as permission to pin their photos you think? Just a random thought! Hah! {Sorry for the long comment!}
xoxo
I went through and deleted all my pins that weren't my own or from someone I had permission from. I was seriously considering deleting my account, but Pinterest just changed their terms of use (to go into effect April, 6) that puts much less of a legal strain - like they explained now that they will NOT sell the pictures, which makes me feel a lot better. (Here is Pinterest's post about it: blog.pinterest.com/post/19799177970/pinterest-updated-terms ) Still, you have to make sure you can legally pin everything, so its definitely more work to pin, so I don't pin as much
Be Merry Kate - yeah, I think if a blog has a Pinterest button they've added, that's permission. I do, and I also have a note in my FAQs on my blog that I allow pinning. However, on bigger sites (like Etsy) the pin does not imply permission, because it was added by the site, not by the individual artists. I know a lot of people are upset that their items are being pinned. I like being pinned, but that is a case where just a pin button doesn't imply permission. I think it depends on whether the owner of the images put the pin button or site owner. Anyway, that's my two cents. :)
But yeah, all the legal issues take a lot of the joy out of Pinterest. I definitely want to be respectful of people's copyright, though, so I guess that's just the way it is. :)
Jacky, thanks for sharing this. I've wasted a lot of time on Pinterest and have felt guilty about it for awhile. Now that I have read these posts, I'm done. Already deleted my account. :( That doesn't mean I'm not heart broken about it of course :(
I'm going to link up to the blog post in my own blog post later this week.
Thanks again!
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