To pin or not to pin?

I've been reading on a growing number of blogs about the issue of Pinterest and copyright. It seems there are a growing number of artists who are finding their work on peoples boards without their permission (read down to the bottom of that link). Whilst some say they find it flattering that someone else pins their work, it is still using the full sized image, sometimes without any reference to the artist.

This has made me stop and think about how I pin - when I pin through from another person's pin I rarely click on it to find it's source. If I'm aware of the artist I will put reference to them - but I've never asked for permission from the artist themselves. As this article suggests, the 'pinner' is liable for their own pin; effectively, if the artist sues it's you who would lose out, not pinterest.

Now, I've not had many of my own 'original' pieces re-pinned, but when I did it felt wonderful - but then again, I'm not making a living off art I create. I can't help but think I would mind an awful lot more if that were the case. It's funny, I was having a similar conversation with Stu (boyf) the other day about how the artist hardly ever sees the big bucks their work eventually makes after I saw some original Shepard Fairey pieces on ebay. I guess artists have made peace with that fact, but this pinterest thing seems to have opened up a whole box of worms.

Perhaps if pinterest would only allow low resolution thumbnails so you had to click through to the artists website to see it properly there wouldn't be such an issue. Or if the rules of pinterest were more clear (I wasn't aware of it until I'd read these articles).

The more I think about it, the more confused I get. A picture of an image isnt the actual image. Why do these images uploaded by artists have to be high resolution to begin with? I don't think you can get a great idea what the original is like merely by a picture on a website anyway - they just serve as a 'taster' of the work. If someone is interested in the work could they just ask for a better picture via email? There is a way of stopping people copying an image from another website isn't there? I'm sure I've seen that. What about artists images found on websites/blogs other than the artists? - Are they fair game?

But really, even asking those questions I'm still avoiding the big issue - it's not my work to be copying, I don't have artists permission. Should it be up to the individual artist to say whether they allow pins or not or should there be one blanket rule? I think it would be a real shame if the idea of Pinterest gets damaged because of these issues.

As a foot note, can I say for the record that I love pinterest, I love the idea of everyone sharing inspiration with each other in an inspirational and friendly community. As is clear by the link on the top left of this blog, I have no problems with you clicking through on my own pictures.


Interesting links:
pinterest and copyright
how to prevent your blogger images from being pinned - there are a lot of links on this blog
another link from DDK portraits in response to deleting her inspiration board
Huston Grey - to pin or not to pin

EDIT: I've answered one of my own questions -  if you pin this code into your website

<meta name=”pinterest” content=”nopin”/>

This will block the image from being pinned and the pinner will see this message;

“This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!”

Thanks for the blog, Jax

Wikipedia Names your Band

If you {me} have got lots to be getting on with but would rather procrastinate on the internet, here's an activity that provides endless fun, courtesy of BuzzFeed.

1) Go to Wikepedia and hit 'Random', whatever the articles title - this is the name of your new band

2) Go to random quotations, pick the last few words of the last quote for your album name

3)Go to Flikr, explore 'Last 7 Days', the third picture along is the album cover.

I'd like to introduce my new band, we're kinda like Mike Oldfield meets Metallica. And I think I may be related to Ben Folds (or Penfold)

Again with this bloody leg!

The above title is from the comments section of this article by Jonathon Jones' art blog, where he questions the origins of Angelina's Versace dress. Give it a read, it's kinda funny...

Inspiring words about creativity

I'd briefly scanned this text by Ira Glass a few months ago and thought it was pretty cool, but yesterday i found a video on youtube that reminded me of it. Be warned though, when I posted it on pinterest, I saw someone re-pinned it and said it made them feel seasick!

I think this is so important for me, and all of us to remember. I'm not always happy with what I make or do, but I have to remember that it's part f the process and that if I stick with it, something will click into place and it won't seem so difficult for a while.

Just my thoughts...

Ha!

Saw this on facebook

A little cookery project

I wouldn't say I'm a particularly stressed-out kind of person, but one of the ways I love to relax is by baking.

Allow me to paint a little scene for you. Since moving to the new house my new journey to and from work passes ALL the best cake and coffee shops in the town - you know the ones, they sell huge slices of cake and biscuits crammed with nuts and chocolate etc. So imagine me, tired and worn out after a heavy day of work having to drive past all this temptation -cake is my major vice, it's just not fair! So I came up with an action plan. Huge cake-shop-sized cake slices sat at home ready for me to enjoy with a cup of chai latte. Mmmm
 

This is my coffee cake, I use a basic recipe for the majority of my cakes and just change the flavour. I invested in some silicone bakeware - so easy, no greasing and easy to clean. I made this cake as a tray bake.

I weigh out three eggs and whatever this weight is I use the same amount of self raising flour, caster sugar and butter.
I add the flavouring as an extra ingredient except when I'm using cocoa where I substitite 1oz flour for 1oz cocoa.
When I am making a darker cake such as a coffee cake or chocolate cake I use half caster sugar and half soft brown sugar as it adds richness.

The method is easy;
Grease and line a baking tin and set your oven at 180°C.
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs and flavouring once the butter mixture is fully combined and fluffy (you can use an electric mixer for these two stages but I just use a wooden spoon)
Then add the flour and fold in by hand very gently. The flour mustn't be worked to hard as the texture of the cake will become rubbery where you want it to be light.
Put the mixture into the tin (or two tins for a sandwich) and put in the oven for around 20-25 minutes, each oven is different so keep an eye on it if you don't know your ovens little quirks as these times can vary widely. The cake is ready when it springs back when you press the centre, or when you skewer the cake it will come out clean.

When I make butter icing I go by eye for the measurements. You use less butter to icing sugar (about half the amount of butter to sugar) and mix until it is smooth- add whatever flavour you like.

This recipe is so easy to modify into whatever flavour you like, vanilla, lemon drizzle, chocolate sandwich, cupcakes. Have a go and have fun!

My latest fad

I haven't been blogging for a few weeks, so I thought I'd put up some photo's of the latest thing I've been doing. Ages ago I bought some earring fastenings from my friendly local haberdashers; I bought a mixture of studs and danglies. The studs were easy to make - I just glued buttons and beads to them and voila - done. The danglies I wasn't so sure of - I'm not much of a drop earring wearer and was out of ideas so I just put them away for a rainy day.

That rainy day came this weekend. I'd bought some grey-smoky translucent beads and some thin copper wire last week because I liked the colours without really thinking much about what to do with them. They sat on my table until they caught my eye this weekend when I was at a loose end and I just played around with different looks.

I used some small wire cutters and needle nosed pliers to manipulate the wire. It was a bit fiddly to secure the wire; I wrapped it around itself a few times then made loops out of the wire to attach to the fastening and closed the loop (on the fastening). The black bead was made using this technique on LoveMaegan

Here are the results: Jewellery making is ADDICTIVE!