it doesnt matter whether the image is watermarked or not. pinning and repinning images is copyright infringement, period.

Quote from: cclapper on May 29, 2012, 01:49
it doesnt matter whether the image is watermarked or not. pinning and repinning images is copyright infringement, period.

Other than when your distributor decides not only to allow it, but to encourage it. 

Quote from: ShadySue on May 29, 2012, 01:59

Quote from: cclapper on May 29, 2012, 01:49
it doesnt matter whether the image is watermarked or not. pinning and repinning images is copyright infringement, period.

Other than when your distributor decides not only to allow it, but to encourage it. 

It's still copyright infringement, send a DMCA notice and get your work taken down.

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 29, 2012, 02:01

Quote from: ShadySue on May 29, 2012, 01:59

Quote from: cclapper on May 29, 2012, 01:49
it doesnt matter whether the image is watermarked or not. pinning and repinning images is copyright infringement, period.

Other than when your distributor decides not only to allow it, but to encourage it.  

It's still copyright infringement, send a DMCA notice and get your work taken down.

iStock warned of immediate exclusion from site if we did that, way back when GIS was new.
They can break  their side of the contract on a whim, but I bet they'd hold us to every iota of ours.

Added: I see your comment on Sean's post, so await an official forum comment. I think Sean has only identified half of the problem in his post. The real issue for me is that, apparently it's quite OK for pinners to pin/repin unwatermarked iStock images from presumably legitimate buyers. In that scenario, iStock doesn't gain either.

OTOH, it migh be that some legitimate buyers would, unthinkingly, put a 'pin this' or whatever it's called symbol on their page, hoping to get 'out there'. That's a whole other issue.

Quote from: ShadySue on May 29, 2012, 02:10

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 29, 2012, 02:01

Quote from: ShadySue on May 29, 2012, 01:59

Quote from: cclapper on May 29, 2012, 01:49
it doesnt matter whether the image is watermarked or not. pinning and repinning images is copyright infringement, period.

Other than when your distributor decides not only to allow it, but to encourage it. 

It's still copyright infringement, send a DMCA notice and get your work taken down.

iStock warned of immediate exclusion from site if we did that, way back when GIS was new.
They can break  their side of the contract on a whim, but I bet they's hold us to every iota of ours.

WHAT?  That's unbelievable!  I'm really shocked. I'm sorry this is happening to you, Sue. 

That was for possibly harassing real buyers, no one that posts your work on pinterest can have the right to do so since you own the copyright.  

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 29, 2012, 02:16
That was for possibly harassing real buyers, no one that posts your work on pinterest can have the right to do so since you own the copyright.  

Of course, you're right. But that doesn't seem to be the way they (iStock) see it. They'd probably think we are 'harassing real affiliates'. I gave them the link: they didn't seem to think it was an issue.
I'll await confirmation, and if it's OK, I'll do it tomorrow. Off to bed now, it's 02:19.

@graphix04: Tx;  I'm sure it's not just me. I bet you'd all find your images on there if you spend long enough on GIS.

I think they gave you bad info, CR doesn't seem to be very coordinated and the next time you ask the question you'll probably get a different answer.  I've gotten many conflicting responses from them and others that made me wonder what they were there for. 

Quote from: sjlocke on May 09, 2012, 19:31

People are not "pinning" things that they licensed from their blog.  They are pinning anything they find on any blog anywhere.  And then another blog owner comes in and says "hey, I need that image, I'm going to use the embed code to just hotlink to it, so it is on my blog". 

And I don't understand why they do this. There are so many high quality images available as Creative Commons, I don't know why anyone would want to flirt with copyright laws just to fill up their blog. The CC images I use for my Disney blog are super high quality, with at least two of my most used photographers being long term Getty shooters. And they encourage me to use them, they love the exposure (no pun intended). There is absolutely no reason to steal anything.

horrible news from istock !
if even the agencies dont protect their own photos, who will ?

so, 554px low res are now considered "thumbnails" and therefore are FREE for grabbing and then fair-use and bla bla bla ??

550px is more than enough to illustrate articles on BBC web site, and on CNN, FOX, Telegraph, WSJ, NYT, etc etc ... next time i will tell them to stop paying subscriptions to getty and AP/AFP/Reuters and just grab free pics from Pinterest with no credit line and no links.

550px is also more than enough for small merchandising sold on POD sites, think about pins, mugs, small stuff where the image is just 3-4cm big.

Quote from: djpadavona on May 29, 2012, 04:54
And I don't understand why they do this. There are so many high quality images available as Creative Commons, I don't know why anyone would want to flirt with copyright laws just to fill up their blog. The CC images I use for my Disney blog are super high quality, with at least two of my most used photographers being long term Getty shooters. And they encourage me to use them, they love the exposure (no pun intended). There is absolutely no reason to steal anything.

they steal from agencies because our photos are well keyworded, that's why.

on Flickr instead it's a gigantic mess, they only use tags, and most of the pics have only 3-4 tags, usually wrong and not pertinent to the image.
licencing is also another black hole on Flickr.

why wasting half an hour on Flickr rather than 20 seconds on iStock ?

I've never had a problem finding relevant photos inside of Flickr. It's not as slick as the agencies, but it has never failed me.

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 29, 2012, 02:25
I think they gave you bad info, CR doesn't seem to be very coordinated and the next time you ask the question you'll probably get a different answer.  I've gotten many conflicting responses from them and others that made me wonder what they were there for.  

I very much agree - I've had at least five different answers to one repeated request (on different occasions), some directly conflicting each other, some at odds with the contract I signed and some, probably the majority, which I'd interpret as being correct within the contract.
I think the CR people are under phenomenal pressure to get through tickets, and they just see the word pinterest in the title, don't read any more, and hit the 'it's an affiliate' button, without seeing that my issue was that the pictures in question are not watermarked, backlinked or easily traceable to iStock for possible purchase.

As that's now plenty time for iStock to have provided online official explanation or guidance, and they have opted not to, I filled in pinterest's own takedown form.

Later: that was pleasantly quick and easy. I got an email saying they'd cleared it, but it could take up to 24 hours for the images to be removed from all servers. However, on the page I screendumped above, only the iceberg that isn't mine remains.


Still should we really have to keep checking GIS to watch out for this?
Will we ever get a clear explanation from iStock as to the nature of pinterest being an 'affiliate' site, and why they have allowed this?

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 28, 2012, 03:22

Quote from: ShadySue on May 27, 2012, 13:54
I have not yet had a reply from iStock's CR about my image which has been pinned (and repinned) from (presumably) a legitimate buyer's site - so is unwatermarked. That's a whole week since I took out the ticket. Is that how long tickets are taking at the moment, or is my ticket in the 'ignore' pile?

If your image is on pinterest send a DMCA request to pinterest.

I'm pushing 5000 DMCA take downs in 9 weeks.  What do I do?

Quote from: Hummingbird on May 30, 2012, 20:41

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 28, 2012, 03:22

Quote from: ShadySue on May 27, 2012, 13:54
I have not yet had a reply from iStock's CR about my image which has been pinned (and repinned) from (presumably) a legitimate buyer's site - so is unwatermarked. That's a whole week since I took out the ticket. Is that how long tickets are taking at the moment, or is my ticket in the 'ignore' pile?

If your image is on pinterest send a DMCA request to pinterest.

I'm pushing 5000 DMCA take downs in 9 weeks.  What do I do?

5000? How come so many of your images ended up on there?

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 30, 2012, 21:04
5000? How come so many of your images ended up on there?

Crafting instructions.  There's a lot to pin; I've been doing this for a decade.

I can barely keep my nose above water.  I may be a little faster at the take-down than they are at the pinning, but the infringement is close to steady-state.

Quote from: Hummingbird on May 30, 2012, 20:41

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 28, 2012, 03:22

Quote from: ShadySue on May 27, 2012, 13:54
I have not yet had a reply from iStock's CR about my image which has been pinned (and repinned) from (presumably) a legitimate buyer's site - so is unwatermarked. That's a whole week since I took out the ticket. Is that how long tickets are taking at the moment, or is my ticket in the 'ignore' pile?

If your image is on pinterest send a DMCA request to pinterest.

I'm pushing 5000 DMCA take downs in 9 weeks.  What do I do?

I did it straight on their website and the pics were down within 90 mins, but 5000 would take forever. 

Quote from: Hummingbird on May 30, 2012, 21:10

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 30, 2012, 21:04
5000? How come so many of your images ended up on there?

Crafting instructions.  There's a lot to pin; I've been doing this for a decade.

I can barely keep my nose above water.  I may be a little faster at the take-down than they are at the pinning, but the infringement is close to steady-state.

Have you sent pinterest an email telling them this, just curious what their response would be? 

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 30, 2012, 21:30

Quote from: Hummingbird on May 30, 2012, 21:10

Quote from: traveler1116 on May 30, 2012, 21:04
5000? How come so many of your images ended up on there?

Crafting instructions.  There's a lot to pin; I've been doing this for a decade.

I can barely keep my nose above water.  I may be a little faster at the take-down than they are at the pinning, but the infringement is close to steady-state.

Have you sent pinterest an email telling them this, just curious what their response would be? 

I sure did send them a threatening email.  They told me to use the no-pin tag.   Did that help?   Maybe by 10%.  Hardly made a difference.  And I wasted a month re-coding old-fashioned static pages.  For NOTHING.

You got to realize... Pinterest doesn't give a rat's tutu about you or me, or copyrights, or the law.  Only themselves.

Quote from: ShadySue on May 30, 2012, 21:18
I did it straight on their website and the pics were down within 90 mins, but 5000 would take forever. 

You think they remove them.  They don't remove them all.  I bet I could find your images still on their servers.

I have this fancy Excel worksheet that spits out lists of every image version from a single input.  That ensures all versions are gone.

They're not nice people.  They're pirates.

Quote from: Hummingbird on May 31, 2012, 00:18

Quote from: ShadySue on May 30, 2012, 21:18
I did it straight on their website and the pics were down within 90 mins, but 5000 would take forever. 

You think they remove them.  They don't remove them all.  I bet I could find your images still on their servers.

OK, fair enough. They only claimed to have removed the instances I told them about. There could easily be others didn't show up on the page I posted above.

The 'do not pin' code isn't much use for avoiding pinning from sites that have legally purchased (or are illegally using) your content until the agencies put it into the T&C that this is required, whereupon a maximum of about 50% of buyers will do so (based on the percentage of unattributed editorial in-uses I've found).

Quote from: ShadySue on May 31, 2012, 00:25
OK, fair enough. They only claimed to have removed the instances I told them about. There could easily be others didn't show up on the page I posted above.

Yes, that's why their online form is useless.  They make you input a page URL instead of an image URL.  That gives them "permission" not to erase all versions of the image, you see?  They're underhanded in everything they do.  Down to the tiniest detail.

The only way to get them to remove every version is to list every version.  By email.

Quote from: ShadySue on May 31, 2012, 00:25The 'do not pin' code isn't much use for avoiding pinning from sites that have legally purchased (or are illegally using) your content until the agencies put it into the T&C that this is required, whereupon a maximum of about 50% of buyers will do so (based on the percentage of unattributed editorial in-uses I've found).

I have not sold images to anyone, they are only on my websites.  The images are pinned directly from my site. They just ignore the "no pin" message.  The nopin tag is a joke.

I can't stress this enough.

You might be delighted that your images are pinned, you might enjoy creating pinboards, you may think copyright is a thing of the past and should be done away with.

Even if I were to agree with all of the above... and despite all the sweet propaganda about being "authentic" posting other people's creations... Pinterest is a horrible, horrible web citizen. 

From their linking scheme designed to rob artists of their rightful search engine traffic to boost their own rank, to the way they handle take down requests... even leaving the frame of the image that's been taken down so everyone knows the identity of the bad guy that's not cool and taking the pretty pictures away... and not removing all images when it would be so easy for them, and giving you a hard time... and their sneaky DCMA online form... their useless nopin metatag that is an OPT-OUT feature when the LAW and good web citizenry dictactes that it should be OPT-IN... and how many things have escaped my notice? 

They hired the guy that monetized Facebook a few weeks ago, it's a matter of time before they monetize my work on their website, and I'm not getting a cut.  The only cut I'm getting is an hour and a half every day chasing my content and filing notices.

Is there anyway to make it so that when they pin an image from your web site they actually get a different image - perhaps one that says "I am trying to steal content online", or maybe a really nasty porno image.

I agree that pinterest is not a good web citizen - their entire model almost requires that their uses break the law, and although they give it lip service they mostly just suggest you go trolling around the web pinning whatever you see.

I found one of my de-activated images from IS there and I tried to post a comment with a link to Featurepics where it is as an experiment. Pinterest wouldn't let me post the comment and haven't answered my inquiry yet.