This is a must read:

http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at-npr-all-songs-considered/

What a wonderfully written piece.  Thank you for posting this.  I'll share it as much as possible.  I loved his 'unsticking it to the man' reference.  If youngsters can start to sense that ripping off artists is decidedly not 'sticking to the man' and is entirely 'uncool', we might start to get somewhere.

I remember when I was a child, there was an ad campaign on TV that said 'Home taping is killing music'... Although later derided as propaganda on the part of the big labels, I was exposed to it at such a young age that it affected me powerfully and pretty much set my moral position on the side of the artist.  Prior to that, I didn't have a clue about the artist/money relationship.  

I just tried to find it on YouTube, only to discover that it has been hijacked by someone who thinks all musicians are as rich as Madonna and only want money for jet planes and cocaine.  It's a long road... but that article is a real energy boost.

(Edited for clarity).
  

About pinning your images from your blog.  Re-pinning is no good as it re-pins don't appear on the front page.  What I'd love to see is their front page with nothing but copyright violations to quickly educate the public.  Imagine the number of pinners that would see them in one go?  If you're game, we can do it from a Google search but we'd need a three of four people pinning.

You can try pinning from here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40998831@N04/

I'm game.

I *think* repinning an image a lot keeps in the front page.  You can repin repeatedly and fill up a folder with repeated images, Pinterest doesn't know the difference.  So if we "catch" one on pinterest's main main, we ought to repin it madly to keep it there.

Quote from: cclapper on June 22, 2012, 07:19

I'm game, but you'll have to tell me EXACTLY what to do. You can sitemail me if you like.

grafix04 volunteered to infringe, so you can be infringed.  Send him a PM with a link to a page with one of your images, and grafix04 will pin it.  You will then file a DMCA through Pinterest's online form.  Watch your email to see if you get a note of the removal from Ben or his minions.

In fact, since we have a volunteer infringer, everyone else can be an infringee, to answer the second question "how much infringement before they cut off your account?"  We just need to PM grafix04 with a list of pages where we want him to pin.  Two weeks later, we start asking Pinterest to remove the material.    Not everyone at once!  We don't want to look un-natural.

@grafix04 - you could do an advanced google search for images in Creative Commons, and fill up a few folders, just so the proportion of infringed material isn't 100%, again we don't want to trigger something un-natural.  I don't think Pinterest checks anything at all, but just in case.

shouldn't we go to private emails to continue this?

Do we have that letter from Ben?

This is an ill-conceived idea which has the potential to get people into trouble. And is potentially not good news for this board either.

Most importantly - you are effectively proposing that you agree with each other to 'infringe' your own IP. De facto you are granting permission. In which case there is no infringement. And then you are proposing to raise bogus and arguably fraudulent legal notices against these fictitious infringements.

So not good already. On another thread here - someone was proposing that photographers should be personally sending out demands for payment against perceived infringements (as opposed to letting their agencies deal with legal issues). And - though the two threads might be separate - it wouldn't take a leap of imagination to cook this all together and call it a fraudulent conspiracy.

People should let their agencies or legal professionals deal with legal issues. Especially as the industry is clearly focused on resolving these issues top down. Half-cocked  schemes like this are likely to backfire and get people into trouble.

I think that this is designed as a fact-finding mission, not to get anyone in trouble. If I choose to "infringe" my own images, that's my business. What is illegal is a whole lot of other people infringing my images, but I guess you are OK with that?

As far as sending out our own DMCA notices...istock has the rule that contributors can't do that. None of the other sites do. None of the agencies do anything about this copyright infringement (maybe for you, yes, if you are an exclusive with istock, but you can't lump the rest of the hundreds of thousands of contributors in with you), so the only way to get anything done is to do it ourselves. I don't get how you say "Especially as the industry is clearly focused on resolving these issues top down" when some agencies are directly contributing to the problem, like DT posting pinterest share buttons on everyone's images!

With all that being said, I agree with you that the above "scheme" does sound fraudulent, and since it was broadcast publicly here instead of being handled offsite, I won't be participating. But the day contributors don't have the right to send out DMCA notices and try to collect money for images they hold copyright to that have been stolen, is the day contributors need to get serious about taking a stand. If agencies won't help with the problem, as far as I'm concerned, they are accessories to the crime.

Nope, iStock weren't at all concerned about my pinned third party page with several of my pictures, because, apparently "Pinterest is an iStockphoto affiliate". They have not replied to my query about how pinning third party pages with unwatermarked photos can be in their interest or mine, and it's fallen off my 'open support tickets'.
But I got the photos taken own myself by using pinterest's own system for reporting misuse, which is more than I can say for stumbleupon.

So istock isn't even helping exclusives, apparently. And they are contributing to the problem, as well (like DT). I don't get how more contributors aren't up in arms about this. I guess some contributors really do believe that this whole pinterest thing is going to make them more money.  And yet lots are complaining about their sales taking a nosedive. <sigh>

"Pinterest is an iStockphoto affiliate"

WOW - that's in quotes, so erm this is an actual quote? 

Yes.

 That means that Pinterest gets a cut if a purchase is made at iStock when someone follows a link from Pinterest?
That's what affiliate means.  GETS A CUT.  Not "Pinterest is an iStockphoto friend" but AFFILIATE.

Who will buy an iStock image from Pinterest?  When I want iStock pictures (I do use them on occasion), I go straight to iStock.  I can see this LOSING money when I hotlink the Pinterest image rather than paying iStock.

I guess the theory is that if a linked watermarked image is seen, there's a vague chance that a new buyer might follow the link and buy the image at iStock.
But that can't work with an unattributed, unwatermarked image.

Question:

Are there any stock photo websites that are not allowing pinning?

I want to give them my business.

Question:

Are there any stock photo websites that are not allowing pinning?

I want to give them my business.

When I look at my images on SS, underneath the image is a share button. When I expand that, it only shows facebook and twitter. I assume that means that at least SS isn't contributing to the pinning directly by having a pin button there.

Quote from: cclapper on June 28, 2012, 10:52

Quote from: Hummingbird on June 28, 2012, 10:29

Question:

Are there any stock photo websites that are not allowing pinning?

I want to give them my business.

When I look at my images on SS, underneath the image is a share button. When I expand that, it only shows facebook and twitter. I assume that means that at least SS isn't contributing to the pinning directly by having a pin button there.

iStock doesn't have a pin button that I can see, just FB, Twitter and LinkedIn.
I don't see any share buttons at all on Alamy images.

I just don't know enough about it to say that those visible buttons mean that images are not being pinned. 

On another thread here - someone was proposing that photographers should be personally sending out demands for payment against perceived infringements (as opposed to letting their agencies deal with legal issues). And - though the two threads might be separate - it wouldn't take a leap of imagination to cook this all together and call it a fraudulent conspiracy.

People should let their agencies or legal professionals deal with legal issues. Especially as the industry is clearly focused on resolving these issues top down. Half-cocked  schemes like this are likely to backfire and get people into trouble.

So let me get this straight.  People who license their images on their own sites (not via an agent) should allow the public to steal their images and do nothing about it?  There is nothing wrong with telling those are using our images illegally that they have to pay if they want to continue to use them.  You're making a big deal out of nothing.  I'm not sending a letter of demand, I'm simply asking for payment before I get formal with them.  Why are you so scared to request payment for goods and services you've provided?   They are your images, they do not belong to any agent who as we now know, don't take copyright seriously. 

Describe how a "more advanced search engine" would work.

Describe how a "more advanced search engine" would work.

Weed out or penalise spam in the keywords.
Oh, iStock was going to do that with BM2, but they gave that up.