Is someone running a negative PR campaign against Pinterest? Or is this really all an organic result of the uncriticalthinking media echo chamber?

That was my initial thought. Whose interest is it to run a negative PR campaign against Pinterest?

Somebody who's been pinned one too many times? Somebody who's not been pinned and feels left out? Somebody who's normally used to being the only one doing any kind of forceful pinning in this town? The male-dominated Silicon Valley insiders looking to repress the fledgling feminine curation site? The Paypal Mafia?

    !!!!!!!!  STORY AT 11  !!!!!!!!

My personal bet would be just the media echo chamber ("They have a story about X? We need a story about X!") combined with a persistent lawyer who's stuck in the uncanny valley of abstraction - well past common sense but still not knowing when you're suffering from Gödel's curse, but who knows.

The last time I thought this, though, the stories were being planted by Facebook PR to slam Google+.

Sorry, I wasn't really trying to strongly disagree. I just started writing and it became more of a commentary on the media and people who think they're righting the world, but are really trapped in Blub.

It could actually totally could be Facebook again, especially given how the narrative is all about individual users being at risk. It seems like interaction on Pinterest would diminish a segment of mass-market Facebook usage. Spread some FUD to make people think using new 'untested' social sites could possibly subject one to liabilities, meanwhile attempt to fill the demand for Pinterest-style interaction with new features.

Actually, now that I think about it more, isn't Pinterest directly monetizing what Facebook has always claimed to be able to monetize sometime in the future?

Theirs even? Being "the next Napster" tells a story the media will pick up, which further gets the word out for them, and isn't exactly the worst thing to be called if you want to look cool... :)

Media are just starting to hit the peak of inflated expectations (heard "the social network that could be the next Facebook" on my local news last night).

Next up: trough of disillusionment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle

This is getting absurd. Many sites cache images. Maybe somebody should come up with an images/content cache agreement that content owners can opt into. Not opting in means no love from Facebook, Google images, Pintrest, and the thousands of other traffic sources.

I also don't buy the copyright infringement argument. Pinterest is a bookmarking service much like Delicious. It no more infringes than the thumbnail previews in Google Images or Facebook posts.

Pinterest doesn't just keep thumbnails, it keeps large versions of images on their servers. There are two clicks to get to the page where the pinner found the image.

I can imagine content creators being unhappy that their image is posted to some blog, and then pinned without their name. People seeing the pin may (but probably don't[1]) click twice to get to the blog, but how many of those people then click again to get to the creator of the content?

To me, the artistic pinboards are gently problematic. The product pinboards are less troubling, because I guess they drive some traffic to the selling sites.

[1] I have no data for this. I realise I might be wrong.

I wonder how Tumblr handles this. Pretty much every Tumblr blog I've stumbled on to contains full size copyrighted images re-hosted by Tumblr.

I don't use Tumblr, but my understanding is that a user has to upload an image for Tumblr to host it. The DMCA safe harbor provisions apply in such cases. Pinterest itself downloads images from pinned items, which probably makes them liable for the infringement.

Interesting... I was unaware that a relatively minor technical difference (browser POST vs. server side GET) mattered so much.

While absurd it does bring to light the other proclamations of "Copyright Violation." If those were true arguments then this should also be applicable. If they weren't true then those who cried foul should be forced to reimburse any dues while confessing to greed.

If that's the case, then Imgur/Reddit is like the new pirate bay. They've been rehosting images (often without attribution, although not maliciously -- someone usually provides it) for years.

That would of course be the tip of the iceberg.

Since Imgur and Reddit represent a fraction of a fraction of the total reposting / rehosting / et al.

Extrapolated to its natural conclusion, you might as well shut down the Web and all that it was designed for.

probably not. see Perfect 10 vs Google:

https://www.eff.org/cases/perfect-10-v-google

Again, Google won this on appeal. It was very narrow victory and isn't a good case for precedent. See http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2007/05/summary_of_perf...

EDIT: Note the last part "affirmed the district court's finding that Perfect 10 was unlikely to prevail on its vicarious infringement claim, because Perfect 10 was unlikely to be able to show that Google had a right and ability to stop or limit the infringing conduct of third-party websites." Pinterest clearly has control over their content and arguably promotes infringement by providing a nifty browser toolbar to do it.

There is also the ASMP, et al vs. Google case that is still pending. See http://asmp.org/articles/asmp-qa-google-class-action.html

The issue with pinterest is the presentation of the original image. Using an image with out explicit consent is illegal even with attribution. Perfect 10 vs. Google revolved around the use of low quality thumbnail representations in search results. Pinterest is not a search engine and does not use low quality thumbnails.

In comparison to Tumblr, it can be argued that Tumblr has a clear purpose as a blog platform above the ability to simply re-blog content from other sites. I am sure Tumblr is inundated with DMCA takedowns as well.

Theoretical lawsuits against Pinterest are more likely to have success because the sole purpose of the platform is to repost third-party content (to what ever means their business model is based on). It will also be interesting to see how well they implement DMCA take-down procedures. Even if the purpose of the site is validated as fair-use, the DMCA procedures will need to be sufficiently vetted to insure they do not lose protection. The recent articles seriously calls into question Pinterest's knowledge and ability regarding handling of DMCA requirements.

"After the appeal the case was remanded back to the district court to decide whether Google is liable for contributory infringement. The case remains pending as of August 2008."

too bad we don't know how this ended.

pinterest enables people to express themselves using images found on the web. The images are hosted by someone, so that others can look at them. Now, pinterest enables someone to do something with these images, other than just looking at them.

I'm joining Pinterest after reading.....

on the other note, it just shows how crucial to the success of your startup is timing. Have Youtube founders set it up today, they would have rotten in jail next to DotCom and most likely Rick O'Dwyer. Instead, they got $1.6B buyout offer.

The mass of content owners that could pursue Pinterest aren't organized into an effective cartel. So no, it's not likely Pinterest is going to get assaulted the same way Napster did.

That doesn't stop one or two larger content owners from hitting them hard of course. Most likely by the time any of this comes to legal blows Pinterest will have figured out a means to dance around the technicalities of it all. Worst case scenario for Pinterest is that they see a YouTube-like run-in with a media company.

The media monsters (eg WSJ, Murdoch) smell that someone out there might, just maybe, be making some money off something they own somewhere, maybe, kinda sorta, possibly. A hint of it is all those animals need. So they're sending out trial balloons for whether there's anything to sue about to grab some cash with no effort.

You have to understand, the first thing these guys think when they see something new like a Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest or Tumblr is (do I): partner with it, ignore it, sue it, buy it. You're going to fall into one of those categories.