Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Pinterest Copyright Infringement: Finding Your Material Is Not Easy

It's very difficult to find your infringed-upon content on Pinterest - I suspect that Pinterest makes it purposely arduous.

Whatever you do, DON'T USE THEIR STUPID ONLINE FORM! If you make one little error, all your entries are wiped off, and you have to start from scratch. Here, I share some tips that I have picked up.

STEP 1: The Secret Hideouts
Type the following in your browser's address bar, replacing "mywebsite.com" by your own domain name:

http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/

I believe that this page represents a selection of new, original pins. Repins don't show up on this page. This page gets updated daily around midnight, with a few re-updates during the night or slow times. In Firefox, open the thumbnail images in new tabs. Right-click on the large images and COPY LINK LOCATION and pate in an Excel worksheet, followed by COPY IMAGE LOCATION, also pasted in the Excel worksheet. You need this information for your DMCA notice. Don't close the tabs when you're done, keep them open for STEP 2.

Next, you have to check the secret hideouts for older pins. Type the following addresses in your browser's address bar, replacing "mywebsite.com" by your own domain name, as you might uncover older, original pins:

http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=2
http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=3
http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=4
http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=5
http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=6
http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=7
http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=8
http://pinterest.com/source/mywebsite.com/?page=9


Pages stop at 9.

You might find quite a bit of hidden material there. Again, from all these images, click and open a new tab. Then from these tabs, collect the LINK LOCATION and the IMAGE LOCATION.

PRO-TIP: Find the ZOOM OPTION in your browser's View Menu. It will shrink everything on the page, so that you'll see more images per screen shot.

STEP 2: Drill Up and Down The Repin Tree
For each tab you opened with an image, scroll down until you see the list of people that repinned that image. Click on the link to their PINBOARD. For instance, if your image has been repinned by Sally Skinnamarink onto "Stuff I like," click on the words STUFF I LIKE to get to see what Sally likes, not that you care. Here, scroll to check if there aren't more things of yours that she fancies. Again, open new tabs for each image, collection link locations and image locations

STEP 3: But wait, there's more!
Next, you'll type this in your browser address bar, replacing "widget+propeller" by keywords that may describe your material. Don't forget to add a "+" sign between words:

http://pinterest.com/search/?q=widget+propellers

Scroll down the page, you might recognize your images. Same routine: for each image, open a tab, collect link locations, image locations, and chase down the pinboards of the repinners for more of your images.

SPECIAL NOTE: search result pages are very rarely updated. Weekly perhaps.

STEP 4: What, I'm not finished?
No. Now you're going to Google the following:

SEARCH: site:pinterest.com mywebsite.com

That will take you to more individual pins and pinboards with your stuff. If you reach a pinboard, use the search function to locate your website string.

STEP 5: Can I have a drink now?
No. It's good to work while thirsty.

Next step is a Google Image/Image search. Go to Google Images, and type in your search term, example, "widget propellers."

If you find an image that's yours on the page, click on it, and drag and drop in in the search box which will automatically enlarge when you hover over it. Like this:


You'll get a result like this one, pointing out all your image's twins on the internet:


Look in that search result for Pinterest results.

Open in fresh tabs, collect link and image locations.

STEP 6: Leave Me Alone, Man!
No rest for the wicked. You still have to write that DMCA complaint

Re-format all the image locations. They are in this format:

http://media-cache7.pinterest.com/upload/265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_c.jpg

But you must reformat it to remove all the copies in their cache. First, strip off the beginning of each image URL:

http://media-cache7.pinterest.com/upload/265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_c.jpg

You'll have this, for each image:

265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_c.jpg

Did you know your image is stored in 4 different formats? To delete them all, change the letters in the URLs to have a version that ends with a b, a c, an f and a t.

265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_b.jpg
265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_c.jpg
265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_f.jpg
265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_t.jpg

Send them a letter like this one to copyright@pinterest.com

Remove these images from your servers (IMAGE LOCATIONS):
265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_b.jpg
265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_c.jpg
265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_f.jpg
265647077990199904_cbzqsk1u_t.jpg

They are from my website (LINK LOCATIONS):
http://widgetpropellers.com/index.html


I state UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY that:

I have a good faith belief that the disputed use of the copyrighted material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law (e.g., as a fair use).

I am the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of the copyright or of an exclusive right under the copyright that is allegedly infringed.

This information is accurate.




You can rest for now, but be ready to start again tomorrow.

While you sleep, you can dream of a permanent fix: