Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Strike One

Mea culpa. I have infringed on the the work of an accomplice to see what happens to infringers after receiving from Pinterest after receiving a STRIKE (a intriguing new option when filing a DMCA take-down notice with yet-unknown consequences). Copyright holders are now asked if they want to administer a STRIKE to the offending pinner. What happens then? Here it is:
This is to let you know that we removed one (or more) of your Pins as a result of a copyright complaint. The content was Pinned from the following address:

(user uploaded)

While we believe the overwhelming majority of activity on Pinterest is completely lawful and provides substantial benefits to copyright owners whose material is Pinned, we also recognize that some copyright owners do not want their content to appear on Pinterest and may believe the presence of their content on Pinterest infringes their copyrights. Where, as here, a copyright owner notifies us of alleged infringement pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), it is our policy to remove the allegedly infringing Pin.

If you believe this Pin was removed in error, or that the copyright owner was mistaken in some respect (e.g. you contend your Pin is not an infringement, or the complaining party does not own the copyrights), you may file a counter notification by following the instructions found here.

If you do not submit a counter notification, we will assume the allegations of infringement are correct, and we will assess a "strike" against your account. Repeated allegations of infringement may result in the suspension or termination of your account pursuant to Pinterest's Copyright Policy.

Thanks for your attention,

The Pinterest Team
Substantial benefits to copyright owners? HA. The arrogance. Completely lawful? This may turn out to be misleading, only the future shall tell. "...may believe the presence of their content on Pinterest infringes their copyrights." I love how Pinterest believes, but copyright owners only MAY believe. How Pinterest, in their opinion is COMPLETELY lawful. The OVERWHELMING majority vs. SOME copyright owners. The so-called SUBSTANTIAL benefits.

We shall see how many strikes are required for the account to be deleted.

Who knew that Pin, Pins, and Pinned were words that are capitalized? Good luck with that. It's still going to be lower-case for me.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

so if the copyright owner [ why would you send a complaint if you weren't?]
doesn't tick the option to strike then the infringer would have no indication they have been called out and something they have pinned has been deleted.

I would have thought

"Repeated allegations of infringement may result in the suspension or termination of your account pursuant to Pinterest's Copyright Policy. "

that the policy should indicate that all infringers should be given the opportunity to respond or not and all notices should be taken as "a strike"

unless the policy really is it is all ok really unless someone picks on you with a tick in the box.

A Glass Artist said...

"unless the policy really is it is all ok really unless someone picks on you with a tick in the box."

Yep. On the surface, it can look as if they're giving copyright holders the opportunity to keep good public relations by not striking.

But being a cynical person, I think they want to bog down the DMCA process a little, and give the pin hags the most pleasant DMCA take down notice possible.

Leslie Hawes said...

I recently discovered my images (original art that I am offering for sale on my blog) being used on Pinterest, and one image repinned over 400 times.
I complained vigorously via email to them that it should not be my responsibility to 'find' and 'report' via DMCA form every use of my image. I was told that that was the only way, so I began a blitz of DMCA takedown notices.
I have to think that the new 'remove all' button, and the weak wording of the 'strike' letter "may" have something to do with pinterests interaction with me.
I am not a pinterest fan by any stretch. It is the slippery slope to all content creators work being usurped. grrr

A Glass Artist said...

Unfortunately, "remove all" was the default. They would remove all repins associated with the original pin of the complaint. Sometimes, the same image can have, say, 5 original pins that have each been repinned 20 times. Pinterest would delete the whole "tree" but not all other trees from different seeds.

Now, if you want to "remove all" they have added an extra step.

"Remove all" is in fact a step backward, not forward, for copyright holders.