My latest fascination is for pinterest.com, a website where, if you are invited, you may "pin" images from the web and make a virtual bulletin board. Think scrapbook and you've got the idea.
It can look a little like this:
Images from dazzling interiors, art, gifts, quotes, jewelry, food, drink -- if you can find an image on the Internet, you can create a limitless collage, as long as it isn't porn (in the purest sense of the word). Some people have created in excess of 10 boards across all those categories. (And will Virtual Hoarding be the next hit on A&E?)
I was fascinated by this idea board idea and requested an invite, which was granted in short order. There are two ways to sign up -- via facebook or Twitter. I don't tweet, but I do have a facebook page, so I was busily signing up when the ole "by clicking here, you give Facebook permission to access your personal information blahdy blah blah" popped up.
Because I don't want to give Facebook permission to do anything except what I want it to do, I wrote to pinterest.com and said, "Hey! I want to pin stuff, but not with Facebook 's schnoz peering into my underwear drawer."
Enid wrote me back:
We do this to make it easier to find people you already know on Pinterest. Activity on Pinterest is never posted automatically: only pins/repins can be shared and you will control when you want to do so, if at all.Frankly, I have no idea what that means.
She did recommend using Twitter to register because the process is "very lightweight," but I don't want to do that either.
Too bad, because I need more excuses to circumvent laundry and dinner-making.
It then occurred to me: is anyone thinking about copyright here? The site says if you link the image back to its original site, that is good pin "etiquette." From what I read, however, the artists and other image-makers out there are not crazy about this pinning craze. Fair use, copyright infringement, and other proprietary issues are firing up all over the place.
I think I'll let everyone sort it out and see what happens.
I'd love to hear what you think. Would you want someone to pin a picture of your granddaughter or dog or mountain cabin on their board? Have they already?
1 comment:
It's the Wild Wild West of copyright, I'd guess.
I have noticed that some people are requesting acknowledgement of their stuff, but if I were an artist I'd sure brush up on copyright law....
And as for Facebook, right there witcha!
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