Amazon gets involved with Pinterest's copyright woes

Pinterest is gaining the popularity points on its ease of sharing "what you like". However, it has run into copyright issues where license owners of images find their work being distributed on the site without permission. Pinterest is primarily an image based platform where users share "things they like" by basically pinning pictures (and in a few cases, videos). It is very easy for users to bypass copyright restrictions when they choose to pin an image to Pinterest. This is where Amazon is stepping into the picture. According to the Daily Dot, Pinterest doesn't host itself on its own servers, rather uses Amazon Web Services for web hosting. Other websites that do this are Foursquare, Path and Zynga.

Pinterest's violating copyrights

The Artists' Bill of Rights, a photographers lobbying organization discovered that Pinterest was hosting on Amazon and wrote to the online retailer to take notice of violations of copyrights under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) regarding Pinterest. The DMCA provides a method for web services to deal with copyright violation claims by their users. If the services comply with the act, then they can avoid copyright claim liability.

Amazon has accepted to process DMCA notices that concern infringements by Pinterest users. They wrote in an e-mail that they do take notice of their customers' DMCA compliance and if they notice a customer's not in compliance, they will take whatever action they feel is appropriate. They said that concerned copyright holders can submit their complaints through an online form.

Amazon also suggested that Artists' Bill of Rights contact Pinterest directly in the event of copyright infringement to be more efficient. However, the Artists' Bill of Rights disagrees saying that contacting Amazon directly will enhance their ability to take notice of DMCA compliance.