There's been quite a bit of talk online recently about respecting copyright and intellectual property online. With the advent of social media bookmarking and sharing sites like Tumblr, weheartit and of course Pinterest, it seems those never well defined lines have become even more blurred.
As I mentioned in my Primer on Pinning post, I am a stickler for making sure that my pins are correctly linked to their sources. Not just because that makes it easier to find the project instructions or recipe directions, but also because it's respectful to the creator of the image, project, photograph or artwork.
So I was very happy when Kal Barteski along with some of her rocking friends started the Link With Love initiative last week. I had been following Kal's posts on a recent incident involving the misuse of one her pieces of work, and when she posted about Link With Love I immediately added the badge to my sidebar, followed Link With Love on Twitter and clicked over to "Like" the page on Facebook.
Link with love is all about making sure that artists, crafters, photographers, musicians, and basically anyone who shares their work online get the proper credit they deserve. Being a part of the initiative means learning what the applicable laws are, and also learning how you can properly credit and link to sources. You can learn more about the initiave here.
A Spin-off Thought
Since all this happened I've been thinking about how these issues affect the scrapbooking industry, specifically publications.. Once upon a time when a magazine published your layout, they asked that you take the image down from any online galleries. Eventually some of the magazines requested that you only submit layouts that were never posted online. I know that Scrapbook Trends still accept layouts that are posted online with the stipulation of taking them down, but now that images can easily be transfered to sites like Tumblr and Pinterest will this still be the case? Has this already changed? (I haven't submitted in quite some time so I am out of the loop.) Does anyone know?
I'm also wondering what is the general feeling among scrapbook designers about sites like Pinterest? I have no problems with my posted pages being pinned by the way. I put them online to share, so as long as they are linked back to me I say pin away! And like I said since I rarely submit anymore I am not too worried from that point of view.
I also want to send a heart felt plea out to everyone who is pinning and sharing scrapbook pages, to please check that you are linking correctly and crediting the person who made the page. Even if you don't put the credit in the description, make sure your pin is linking to the blog post the image is actually posted in, or the exact spot in the gallery it is pinned from. so that the person who made the page will always get the credit.
Okay, I think I will get off my soap box now. Next week I'll share some ways that I have been able to track down the direct links to things I pin to my boards.
