They updated/changed their terms…the main thing is they made it clear they no longer claim they’ll sell work that’s been uploaded and they removed that language. ( new terms effective 4/6)

Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for us to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.

They’re making it simpler for copyright claims to be filed and there is a way for photographers/websites to prevent people from “pinning” so if a copyright owner doesn’t want their work up there, they have an option at least to move in that direction. (wish it was so easy for piracy matters).

It tells me that the people at pinterest were listening when we pinned things like this…

Honestly, I don’t think Pinterest expected to become as big as it did. I don’t think they realized people like writers would flock to it for the visual inspiration. I don’t think they expected readers to flock to it to make book boards. I don’t think they expected a million and one star wars geeks to descend upon it. It got very big, very fast.

The problem is that a lot of people don’t get copyright and they don’t realize that taking somebody’s work from deviantart-work they expect to sell and make a living from-is a problem. Hopefully more people will get that there is a problem. Artists work damn hard, no matter what the medium and it should be respected. If it’s cutting into how they are able to earn a living, if they aren’t being recognized for their work… yeah. Problems.

But Pinterest is taking steps to alleviate this and I’m slowly finding my way back into it’s addictive embrace. My way is to continue to be respectful of what I pin.