There has been a lot of talk about Pinterest, a social network that lets you pin images and videos across the web. I have used it, and haven’t seen a lot of value in it. However, I continue to waste time there and pin things left and right. Try it out… it’s pretty cool. The interface is really clean too. Anyway, the service been in the news lately regarding their terms of use. Basically, if you pin something that is under copyright, you are liable. Not the service. Other popular tools like Facebook and Twitter will take some of the blame and will usually remove that content… but not Pinterest. They are pretty much encouraging you to pin this content. Anyway, they recently changed their terms of use.
Updated Terms of Use
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been working on an update to our Terms. When we first launched Pinterest, we used a standard set of Terms. We think that the updated Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy are easier to understand and better reflect the direction our company is headed in the future. We’d encourage you to read these changes in their entirety, but we thought there were a few changes worth noting.
- Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.
- We updated our Acceptable Use Policy and we will not allow pins that explicitly encourage self-harm or self-abuse.
- We released simpler tools for anyone to report alleged copyright or trademark infringements.
- Finally, we added language that will pave the way for new features such as a Pinterest API and Private Pinboards.
We think these changes are important and we encourage you to review the new documents here. These terms will go into effect for all users on April 6, 2012.
Like everything at Pinterest, these updates are a work in progress that we will continue to improve upon. We’re working hard to make Pinterest the best place for you to find inspiration from people who share your interest. We’ve gotten a lot of help from our community as we’ve crafted these Terms.
Thanks!
Ben & the Pinterest Team
In regards to the pinning of content that the poster does not have copyright to I would think that they would have to remove the content, at least temporarily. I think that’s what is done on YouTube – remove something if there is a claim against it, sort it out, and put it back if the claim was frivolous. I actually thought that services had to do something like that per DMCA but I could be wrong on that.