The attribution ambiguity of Pinterest highlights another issue as far as sharing is concerned: it’s tough to tell if a site-owner wants their content to be pinned. Sharing has a number of benefits; the exposure (especially for pins from content that encourages click-throughs) can be an amazing boost for a site. Understandably, though, some artists wouldn’t want their content duplicated or spread without their approval.
This supporter versus critic situation reminds me a lot of the Live Music Archive. The LMA is an amazing resource to find bootlegged audio from concerts, and before the days of YouTube is was a great site to visit if you wanted to find out if you’d still like your favorite band after you heard them live. The LMA faced a similar permission issue, and they solved it by requiring (and publishing) a confirmation from the artist (or their management) that taping and sharing was OK.
Does Pinterest need this kind of registration system? I think it’s way too much of a hassle, and frankly I don’t think it’s practical.
Over the weekend I found that Pinterest has an option to put a Pin It button on your website (scroll down on the page to “‘Pin It’ Button for Websites”), similar to the buttons for Facebook and Twitter sharing. I quickly added it over on both the blog and store at Pine Tree Photography, and it’s an awesome fit. The website button benefits site owners in two ways; it reminds people to share their content if they like it, and it gives a stamp of approval from the artist saying that he wants his content shared.
If Pinterest continues to grow and thrive, I’m convinced that it will face permission issues from artists. The Pin It button for sites is a perfect solution for both site owners and Pinterest users, and we should encourage every social-friendly artist we know to add them. Let’s make those buttons the standard way to tell if an artist says, “I’m OK with being pinned.”