a real-life pin board in my studio

Imagine you are in a lovely, airy, high-ceilinged room. The lighting is perfect, not too bright and not too dim. There are comfy places to sit: couches, chairs, plush and cushiony rugs underfoot, pillows to recline on. There is tea and coffee, sparkling water with lime, the occasional cocktail, and snacks of every kind for every want and every taste. Every available wall space is covered with a pinboard. Each pinboard has a name and a reason for being. And each board is filled with beauty and colour and words and stories. All the stories I’ve ever wanted to hear, all the stories I’ve ever wanted to tell.

Yes, that’s how I’ve felt about Pinterest. It’s been lovely, like a dream. Beautiful in its clarity and its immediacy. It’s been lovely like the first days and weeks of a new love. Everything looks brighter, and better. Senses are heightened and aware. Happiness is everywhere.

And then, well . . . and then, things go back to the everyday, and though there is still immeasurable beauty and love and happiness, there are also some disconcerting feelings beginning to form around the periphery of my vision. Feelings like: Is he really for me, are we as compatible as I thought we were last week? Is he who he said he was, because his walk and his talk are feeling just a little bit out of step.

I accepted an invite from Pinterest sometime in late 2010 and didn’t really do anything with it until well into 2011, and at that point I fell. And fell hard. A dream, a hope that I never knew I had, was being answered: a place that I could keep track of favourite artists, favourite words, colours, design ideas, and clothes, anything and everything on the internet that inspired, provoked, healed, blossomed, and cultivated a feeling inside of me.

Pinterest is a place that is so richly visual, and functions like my own brain does {in pictures!} — so much more beautiful and inspiring than ye old Bookmark list on Firefox.

I started compiling ideas for my studio, for future changes in our home, pieces by favourite artists and illustrators and designers and photographers, colour, pattern design, and on and on and on. After the first of this year I started sharing some of my favourite Pinterest finds once a week on my blog.

And all the while I was feeling less and less sure about what I was doing, and less and less sure that all this pinning was really and truly OK.

I told myself that it was okay because I only linked directly to the original site, AND I typed the artist’s name and/or credit in the description field. I told myself that because I whole-heartedly support Kal Barteski’s campaign to Link {and pin} with Love, that people would know that my motives were pure and I wasn’t looking to steal work or infringe on anyone’s copyright.

But the thing is, that once I pin something, I have no control over where it goes, no control over where and how someone else will re-pin, and no control over what Pinterest does with the image.

And the thing is that if you read Pinterest’s Terms of Use section, they have set it up so that they have no liability for copyright infringement, but we the pinners do {memories of Napster anyone?}.

If I had that airy, perfectly lit room, big enough to house all the pin boards with places to sit and look over what I had pinned, and gather and talk with friends about what was inspiring me today, I think I would still be as deeply in love with Pinterest as I was at the start.

But my boards are not set up in the privacy of my home, and they are visited by lots and lots of people that I don’t know, and I have pinned the work of other artists and writers and creators and not gotten their direct permission.

So, what to do with my Pinterest account?

One option is to keep my account but take down all the boards that show other artists’ work and thereby use Pinterest as a “shopping” board.

• Pin only things found in online catalogues and sites that are selling their wares {because I’m hoping that places like West Elm aren’t going to mind that I pin one of their couches}.
• Pin things that my friends are making (after asking them), and, of course, never pin anything that I make since that is not condoned {per Pinterest’s Pinning Etiquette}. Though come to think of it, that’s ironic since my stuff is really the only stuff that I have any legal rights to pin.

Or, keep my account as it is and:

• Spend a fair amount of my time tracking down and contacting artists and artist representatives to see if they are OK with me pinning their stuff. And, honestly, given my lack of extra time, that is probably not going to happen.

Last option:

• Delete my account altogether.

And that’s where I feel torn. I am still in love, and yet, my love is not feeling like all I’d hoped he’d be. If I take down all the inspiration, then that defeats the purpose of my account, ‘cuz really, do I want to spend time making visual shopping lists? It will lose its appeal pretty quickly.

Quite a few people have publicly discontinued their accounts with Pinterest, and some talk about their reasons why, and how they came to their decision.

People have written about copyright infringement and some deeper issues that involve easier ways to steal because Pinterest is storing full size images of everything that is pinned, on their servers. Full sized, not thumbnails.

I have also had conversations with friends who are coders and web developers and their stance is that the internet is all about open access, that if you put it up on the web it’s fair game, and that is one aspect of how the internet started.

So, how are you feeling about Pinterest?

Are you feeling that it’s fine and don’t think all the current hoopla is going to amount to much? Have you thought about what you’re pinning and where it’s sourced from? Have you had your work pinned and not credited to you, OR credited to someone else, OR printed from a pin and sold at a profit by someone else? I’d love to hear how you’re feeling about this one, because it affects all of us who have content on the internet these days.