Robert_Charlton - 7:41 am on Mar 7, 2012 (gmt 0)

Curiouser and curiouser....

I was wondering (in a joking kind of way) whether Pinterest might have been set up by the backers of the law firm that's been representing Getty Images ;) [webmasterworld.com...] ...so I decided to google [pinterest getty images] to get a sense of what the Zeitgeist is out on the street.

Google returned "About 4,910,000 results"... one of which was a news story in the GlobalPost [globalpost.com...] following up the story of Kirsten, the lawyer/photographer (yep) who inspired the story that inspired this thread. (Ironically, the story came up for my query because the photo it used of the Pinterest co-founders included a Getty Images credit.)

As the GlobalPost reports, one of the co-founders, Ben Silbermann, called Kirsten and apparently they had a very nice hour-long chat. You can read the full story on the GlobalPost and on Kirsten's blog [ddkportraits.com...]

Kirsten writes great blog posts, but her server is close to melting. The gist of it is that as a photographer she's delighted to have her work re-pinned "if you are so inclined", and most photographers she knows want to use the site to help promote their businesses and "to find inspiration".

Also, she didn't actually close her Pinterest account.. she "merely deleted [her] inspiration boards boards" of pinned material she'd found on the web, at least until Pinterest clarifies the legal situation.

Now, this is where I come back to Getty. Among the pages returned...

Pins from Blog.gettyimages
http://pinterest.com/source/blog.gettyimages.com/

...apparently offering Getty material for pinning. I was surprised. It appears that at least some photographers and some parts of Getty are eager to share in return for the exposure (no pun intended).

But what is the deal if you pull a Getty image from elsewhere on the web?