Pinterest and Copyright Infringement: Beware - By Their Terms of Use, Pinterest Tries to Pass Any Copyright Claims Over to You

Clients, colleagues, my assistant, even the clerk at World Market ... everyone is talking about Pinterest.  Yes, another media site...and you were still getting used to Twitter, right?

Well, don't jump on that Pinterest bandwagon too fast, folks.  I admit that I was invited to join Pinterest in some long-ago email and I accepted the invitation ... but I never used the site.  Just put it on the To Do List, to check out in the future.

Recently, I did check out Pinterest.  And I promptly cancelled my membership.  Why?  I read the March 2011 Terms of Use, which include the following lingo:

You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services. Accordingly, you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms; and (ii) neither the Member Content nor your posting, uploading, publication, submission or transmittal of the Member Content or Cold Brew Labs’ use of the Member Content (or any portion thereof) on, through or by means of the Site, Application and the Services will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation. ...

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Cold Brew Labs, its officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of or in any way connected with (i) your access to or use of the Site, Application, Services or Site Content, (ii) your Member Content, or (iii) your violation of these Terms.

Now, from what I understand, the reason to use Pinterest is to grab images from various websites and "pin" them on your Pinterest page to share with others.  Different from bookmarking them, or Stumbling them and not the same as OneNoting them.

There are copyrights floating around in there, and I'm not going to mess with it.

Plus, reading these terms of use, I think it sounds like Pinterest understands that there are infringement issues swimming through its service stream and I don't like the idea that instead of respecting rights they've opted for passing the buck on any claims (or at least trying to do so).

I'm not the only one concerned about what's going on here.  Check out here and here.  

Yuck.  Life's too short ... and I'm busy enough without making time for Pinterest.  You read the Terms of Use, you check out the service, and make your own decision.