Article Intro by Elissa Liu, Spark Growth Partners
One of the biggest concerns about Pinterest has been whether it poses problems with trademarks, copyright and other rights associated with producing original content. From a user perspective (which applies to consumer and business users), there is the question and about whether pinning a cool photo you found on a website could put you at risk of legal action or even just a request to remove your pin from your pinboard. Pinterest’s terms and conditions seem to put the owness on the user to ensure they have the rights to distribute the content.
The question is whether there is a threat to original content producer, or whether having their content reposted and shared presents an opportunity. While there may be an initial instinct to try to protect your content, which you spent good time and money producing, perhaps a shift in perception is needed to consider the potential benefits of having your content circulating and getting shared through pins and re-pins.
These are all great questions and ones discussed by Alexia Holovatyk over at Social Media Today. After having an experience herself with a content creator who asked her to remove a pin of an image she had posted to Pinterest (which had subsequently received repins and comments), she asked the question about what are the benefits and risks of having your original content shared in these kinds of contexts. Should you sit back and watch your content getting shared without proper credit, or should you request that it be removed, so that only your site hosts the content you worked so hard to produce?
Further to Alexia’s point – I would ask the question of whether you can actually proactively make these situations positive, by posting a comment linking back to the page with the original content (and perhaps more like it or related items that complement the piece).