A woman named Kirsten decided to look into the legality of Pinterest. After all, she's a lawyer with a passion for photography.What she found scared her so much, she shut down her Pinterest boards entirely.
Kirsten's investigation began after she saw photographers complaining about copyright violations on Facebook. She wondered why Facebook could get in trouble for copyright violation and Pinterest couldn't.
She browsed Pinterest's Terms of Use section. In it she found Pinterest's members are solely responsible for what they pin and repin. They must have explicit permission from the owner to post everything.
"I immediately thought of the ridiculously gorgeous images I had recently pinned from an outside website, and, while I gave the other photographer credit, I most certainly could not think of any way that I either owned those photos or had a license, consent or release from the photographer who owned them," Kirsten writes.
Pinterest encourages repinning community photos though, so Kirsten found it hard to believe the act was unlawful. She continued to dig. Read More
