Hey Friends! So, were you surprised by our living arrangements? Was it better or worse than you thought it would be? I was actually a little hesitant to let Tim post those photos because I thought people might be grossed out by our plastic shower or just think we are completely crazy. The thing is we are a little crazy and I actually think our accommodations are a little too nice. Things are “good enough” that I am still more concerned with my client’s spaces rather than my own. But I’m willing to live in our current situation because I know that relatively soon things will be different and this space will ooze creativity and color. The hope of a better tomorrow keeps me going! 🙂
Because I am about to take on a ton of projects, you may think that I am “pinning” inspiration out the wazoo! Well, this brings me to the point of this post.
Since Pinterest has been formed, I have had mixed emotions about the whole idea. I really think there are positives and negatives to the site. If you’ve been watching Fashion Star, you might recall the episode when a designer (I think it was Orly) said “when you look at so many “inspiration” photos, the ideas you start to formulate aren’t really your own.”
I immediately identified with Orly’s feelings. For me, it’s incredibly important that most of the ideas I come up with are completely my own. I intentionally avoid looking at a lot of inspiration photos because I don’t want to be too heavily influenced by other’s work. Even though an idea I come up with may have been thought of before, I take pleasure in the fact that I thought of it without seeing someone else do it before.
Now, I completely understand this is not everyone’s sentiment and really, it can’t be. We were all given different gifts and talents. Many people don’t have the gift of creativity and would rather just see an idea and replicate it. I get that. I love when people are inspired enough by a project they see to actually get their hands dirty and take it on for themselves. It gives me great joy when I receive e-mails/photos of something I have inspired a reader to make. I love to empower people in that way and really that is why Tim and I are planning out our DIY workshops right now.
What I don’t love is when credit is not given for an idea. In this day and age it seems like people feel free to “steal” intellectual property. Whereas most of us would never actually take someone’s physical belongings, it seems like taking credit for someone else’s intellectual property is common and accepted. This bothers me. . .a lot. And not just when it happens to me. Now if you know me well, you know that injustice is my biggest peeve. Put me on “What Would You Do?” and I guarantee I would be the person who took a stand regarding the discrimination going on.
photo found here
Now, this makes me sound noble. . . but I’m also the person who became extremely (and sometimes embarrassingly) angry when I felt a bad call was made on the basketball court.
I never got quite as mad as Bobby Knight, but it was close. 🙂 Photo found here.
Anyway, back to the point- I love when people are empowered to create. I greatly dislike when people feel free to take all the credit for a creation that was not their original idea. I know some people (mostly Christians) who love to quote the Bible verse, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” to help them feel better about this issue. Now, I’m not a Bible scholar, but I’m pretty sure this verse is not referring to the issue at hand. . it can’t be. There are new ideas occurring all the time.
Claiming other’s intellectual property would happen whether Pinterest existed or not, it just seems like Pinterest makes it incredibly easy. I think a lot of people go on and “pin” or “repin” things without ever knowing the original source of the creation. To help me deal with this on a personal level, I have told myself it is now my job to make projects so unique and eye catching that people choose to seek out the originator. And while there are things I would change about Pinterest, I do benefit from it. There are a lot of people that do come to the blog based off photos they’ve seen on Pinterest. I also use the site when working with clients (their boards give great insight into the styles they enjoy).
So given the choice, I would not get rid of Pinterest. But I do think some changes could be made. I also think that the topic of intellectual property is something that needs more discussion among the blogging community.
So what are your thoughts? I want to open up this conversation. I am interested to hear why you are for or against the Pinterest mania.
I never comment, but this is something I feel strongly about too! It really bothers me when sites that “feature” other people’s talent have a PIN IT button right on that post or individual photos on the post! They should be encouraging their readers to go check out the featured bloggers website instead of encouraging them to Pin It for their own website and thus receive all the referrals for someone else’s work!
Beth @ http://www.SawdustAndEmbryos.com
“Many people don’t have the gift of creativity and would rather just see an idea and replicate it.” – Delurking to say that I don’t think this is a fair comment at all. Unless you you replicate it 100%, meaning you have the same space and pieces and use the same colors and furniture, i.e., does a complete copy and past, how can you say creativity is not involved? If I see a beutiful idea of, say an antique chair covered in “modern” fabric and then decide to renovate my antique chair using a “modern” fabric of my choice, isn’t there some level of creativity envolved?
As far as Pinterest goes, I see your point and I agree that not being able to find the original source seems wrong in so many levels. But I know many people, myself included, who have been saving inpirations photos for years and sometimes you just don’t know anymore where it is from.
I agree with you about Pinterest. I DO like to look at other ideas for inspiration at times. Mostly when I feel like my creativity is dry I will go look at some beautiful photos of things I love and it often gets my creative juices flowing again. It doesn’t even have to be stuff people have made but just beautiful stuff in general. I rarely (if ever) make exactly what someone else makes – I put my own twist to it.
I so agree that the credit needs to go to the originator. I didn’t have a clue how pinterest worked and I know I repinned stuff that will not go back to the orginal post. I need to spend some time editing my boards. I do have full intentions now of always making the pin go to the orginator but I am human and might make a mistake now and then.
I so appreciate your attitude of joy when you see someone use an idea of yours. I have rubbed shoulders with a few who really don’t want anyone esle to ever do what they have. It can be stressful for me when I have an idea all on my own and then a friend does almost the saem thing before I do. I then can feel like I can’t do my idea becasue even though I came up with it on my own they think I copied. Copying can be a wonderful form of a complement! Just give credit to who you got the idea from!
I SOOOO agree with you. My Mom even asked me the other day, “Do you feel like pinterest helps you come up with ideas?” I said, “No.” I enjoy Pinterest for home ideas, recipes & outfit ideas. Since I have a Party Planning/idea blog, I don’t like to search out party ideas. Trends, yes. Ideas, no. I love the challenge of having a certain budget, certain materials & coming up with my own solution. Not seeing someone else’s solution. Even though, like you said…someone may have already thought of the idea you thought of, it is rarely exactly the way you did it. Thanks for posting this! It’s nice to know someone else feels the same way! Thanks for all your great ideas, Kara! I love being inspired for my home decor by you! Heidi Rew from PartiesforPennies
Pinterest is really only one example of a much wider problem. I don’t know how many times I have seen people write blog posts that include a whole set of “inspiration” photos and never indicate their source(s). That’s just plain wrong.
I love your blog for many reasons, one of which is your incredible visual imagination. Seeing your work is a joy to me.
I do admit that sometimes ideas are just “in the air”. I’ve published work and discovered later that someone a continent away was developing a project along the same lines. It happens. Unfortunately, much of what happens online is more like theft.
I have mixed feelings. I love pinterest!!! Especially for outfit ideas and color combinations. Before pinterest I was constantly saving images onto my compter just for my own inspiration or DIY ideas. At least now I can have the link back to the original. I DO try to really track back the original source before I repin. (dragging image int google images search bar has really helped with that) I almost blame tumblr more, those blogs seem to be the worst at original sources! It does bug me though, when people have blog posts with nothing but pins. I like your challenge of making things taht are so original people will know!!
Unfortunately, I feel very different. Asking people to give credit for things that inspire them is a bit ridiculous. All pinterest did was show the world how many personal sites such as blogs, tumblr, etc were irresponsibly using others property. A virtual board of inspiration is not claiming any of these ideas as your own property. When someone pins something off of a blog that doesn’t credit the original source, they are being as misled as the creator is being cheated. That blogger should be held accountable for using others property, not the blog reader who came across it. Blaming pinterest is like shooting the messenger.
From what I’ve read, the strategy and intention behind Pinterest was always to preserve copyright and credit the original content creator of an image, but that does not necessarily mean the originator of an idea, which is the very stuff intellectual property is based on.
That said, I think all Pinterest users have both the right and responsibility to use the Report Pin button if they know that a pin has somehow not been credited properly. And leave a comment on the pin for all to see if something seems highly derivative of someone’s else’s work … being nice of course, something like “wow, great work in the style of Kara, I saw that very concept on her blog a while back …” That way, unknowing folks like me who are interested in the one image will certainly check out the other mentioned source, and over time I think abusers of the system will not benefit from their actions as people neither pin nor visit them any longer. At least one can hope.
And most certainly we should use the Report Pin button if a pin is a “front” for spam, etc … how do they do that anyway? … change the URL attached to a pin to redirect you to somewhere unintended, a most often highly undesired, website / blog. Anyway ….
And when pinning, if I don’t have time to check the source on the pin right then, I “like” the pin as a personal bookmark / reminder, then check it out later to decide if I actually will pin it. So far that’s worked fairly well for me.
I do think that Pinterest should offer an applet to bloggers that would disable Pinterest on their blog; that would certainly be more effective than home pages saying “please don’t Pin or use our image without permission first”. The best thing would be an applet that selectively allowed a blog owner to indicate which photos were / weren’t Pin’able. Of course folks could just screen capture at that point but legally they couldn’t repost the work.
I’m a happy user of Pinterest and do my best to link back to the original source when it’s available. I definitely don’t use the boards as a “blog” or posting of my unique finds, but as a tool for keeping track of inspiration, ideas, and things I love (and often go back to buy!). It’s been much more useful than dragging images to my desktop into random folders and weeks later not being able to track down where I found it. I’m guessing this is how a lot of people use the site, and most of them don’t realize content creators work hard to come up with ideas and execute them and giving a link back or credit is the right thing to do.
That said, I’m also an artist who creates original ideas and have received a huge uplift in website traffic from Pinterest as well as a large number of clients who found my work through the site! I’m a fan, and I think it’s *mostly* a good thing. I don’t use it to keep inspiration for my own projects, though. I’ve also had a bunch of people send me photos or blog about how my work inspired them to DIY their own version (often a complete and direct lift from mine), which is totally fine, BUT… I’ve also come across a huge number of imitators who try to sell these copies on Etsy. This is where the problem starts for me. I’d say Pinterest has made it a lot easier to find ideas and rip them off, but it’s a practice that has been done loooong before Pinterest came along.
Overall, I’m a fan of Pinterest and the positives have outweighed the negatives for me so far. DIYers gonna DIY, but when someone’s trying to sell a direct copy of my work, I do my best to stop them as quickly as possible to protect my ideas and brand.
This has been a hot topic lately on the blogs, so hopefully the public is becoming more aware of the etiquette around crediting and pinning on the web!
I am not a Pinterest user but I have to admit I visit sometimes some bloggers’ pins. I have to point the existence of the blogs and other sites where everything is ALREADY shared. Pinterst just puts them together making the search easier. So instead of saying “close Pinterest” I would say “close Internet”.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Yes — clarification of my earlier comment — I’d say Pinterest is well within the “accepted usage” allowed by copyright. They only permit one image per pin, and they automatically link to the site. They have no control over the behavior of individual bloggers, who may not be the originator of the image, the project, or the idea.
I love pinterest too and argee with your statements. I was for over 10 years ripping out images and articles out of decoration magazines to gather my “inspiration” or ideas. with pinterst now, I don’t need to do that like I used to. my five years behind on filing all my “inspiration” pictures and it’s over whelming. I’m so glad I have pinterst now.
One thing I wish they would change about Pinterest is allowing a board to be completely private to just you. Sometimes I pin stuff because I really want to buy later and need to remmebr the link but with 1,700 people following my pins (on most of my boards) and who ever else follows them who re-pins my pin, the item could be sold out!! Especailly if it’s from Esty.
those are my thoughts. :o)
I just like it to organize my own pins and to remember what website I found it on. I rarely pin other people’s pin because there are so many bad links and duplicates to look through when you search for things. I think one should credit their original inspiration if they are going to share what they created publicly. But as far as inspiration goes, I don’t think Pinterest would make someone (especially you) less creative. Those who are truly creative use inspiration as a jumping off point, not as something to exactly replicate. To a creative person/artist I don’t think looking at Pinterest is any different than seeing inspiration as you walk through your day.
There are definitely people who follow the links on Pinterest. I love going back to the original link to find a recipe, workout, or a new blog to follow. Also, since starting my own Etsy shop (www.etsy.com/shop/caddostreet), I have noticed in my store stats that people have pinned and re-pinned my items, and that I am actually getting a lot more exposure because of the site.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
I love Pinterest, and the vast majority of pins I gather and click on go back to the original site. If you use the “pin it” button to make a pin from any site, it automatically links to that original site.