PinAh, doing what’s right. Sometimes it is just so hard to do, and this is one of those times. It is with much regret that we announce that we will not be doing another Pinning It Down. Over the past few days it has come to our attention that many pinners are growing more and more concerned about the legality of Pinterest and choosing to delete their Pinterest accounts. This includes a number of the people who have participated with us in the past.

Amidst a flurry of emails and a phone call, we too have tried to decide what the most ethical course of action should be in dealing with Pinterest, especially in the context of Pinning It Down. Here is what we have decided:

  • Pinning It Down will cease to exist in its current form effective immediately.
  • We now have a poll in both of our sidebars asking our readers if there is an interest for a weekly link-up to continue that gives bloggers the opportunity to make, do, cook and share something they have been inspired by online. Please vote only on one blog — Everyday Snapshots or Amongst Lovely Things. Results from both locations will be combined. The polls will close Monday, March 12.
  • If the interest is there (and we hope it is!), we will open a new weekly link-up the Tuesday after Easter, April 10, with a nifty new name, logo, and guidelines. One guideline will be that links to the tutorial, recipe, or idea that inspired you must be to the original blog or website, not to Pinterest. This does two things. It insures that proper credit is given back to the original blogger who created the idea, and it allows people who are not Pinterest members to participate in the link-up.
  • One of the things we will be doing over the remaining weeks of Lent is rechecking each of the original Pinning It Down thumbnail images to make sure that the images are indeed the property of the person who posted them. If your thumbnail image is not your own, it will be changed to one of yours from your post or it will be removed. We feel we must do this to protect ourselves from possibly having copyrighted material on our blogs.

Speaking now for myself, I am not sure that such drastic measures as shutting down my Pinterest account and deleting my boards need to be taken at this time. I have seen evidence that Pinterest is reworking its terms of use to address concerns. I also think that these posts are actually some of the most even-handed assessments of the situation that I have found in my research:

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So here is what I plan to do:

  • For the remainder of Lent I will be reviewing my Pinterest boards. If an item is at all questionable in copyright, pinned from Etsy, or does not link back to an original blog post, I will be deleting it.
  • I will be taking a hard look at my boards and pins to see if they still inspire me or if they can just go. Anything that no longer excites me will be automatically deleted to save me the legwork of checking links and legality. I plan to be brutal in this culling so that I have fewer links to check. Just doesn’t seem to be my idea of fun.
  •  I will no longer repin without first checking pins to make sure they link to an original item that is a tutorial, recipe or displays a Pin It button somewhere on the blog.

Pinterest is a fantastic tool for creating visual lists and bookmarks and there are many bloggers who actually do want you to pin their work to share with others. I know I am one. I also want those pins to link back to my blog and not simply some dead link on Pinterest. There will always be some users who abuse the system. The problem with the nature of Pinterest is that it is so easy to be caught up in that abuse by simply clicking a button. Slow pinning — taking time to make sure something will be useful and valuable, checking links, and verifying the author’s intent to participate — for me is the best way to insure that my Pinterest use is ethical and legal.

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