The developers of Pinterest, a rapidly growing photo bookmarking social network, issued software code over the long weekend which they hope will counter copyright concerns.
Cold Brew Labs Inc., the Palo Alto-based creators of Pinterest, created code that content owners can put on their site that blocks their photos and artwork from being "pinned" to the popular network.
Instead users will see a message telling them that pinning is not allowed on that site.
Pinterest is said to be the fastest-growing social network to date, exploding from about 4.9 million active monthly users in November to more than 11 million in January. This puts it far behind the numbers of social networking giants Facebook (167 million), Twitter (39 million) and LinkedIn (33 million).
But if it can maintain its current trajectory it could soon pass MySpace (19 million), Google+ (18 million) and Tumblr (17 million).
But not if it can't douse concerns being raised by photographers and others that Pinterest users can illegally copy their work onto the service's pinboards.
The users to date have mostly been women (58 percent) and the photos that get shared with the network are mostly things users want to buy, wear, eat or places they would like to go.
This makes it attractive to retailers and small businesses whose goods and services could find free marketing from Pinterest.
But some have worried about the copyright issues despite reassurances from the site's developers. In addition to the new blocking code, the company complies with federal law which requires it to take down violating material when notified.
"We care about respecting the rights of copyright holders. We work hard to follow the DMCA procedure for acting quickly when we receive notices of claimed copyright infringement," the company wrote in a blog post."We understand and respect that sometimes site owners do not want any of their material pinned."
Written by Cromwell Schubarth. Contact him at cschubarth@bizjournals.com or 408.299.1823.