Risky Pinterest Business? Questions on Intellectual Property Protection and Brand Promotion

Pinterest’s announcement last month that it would allow the creation of business accounts seemed a welcome development. After all, the site had always encouraged authenticity but had not been welcoming authentic commercial use. Now businesses can come out of the shadows and claim their board’s business pages. In so doing, they still face many unanswered questions.

Intellectual Property Protection for Businesses Still Meager

In creating Business Accounts, Pinterest has stated it has a license to use uploaded content. At the same time, however,  Pinterest has promised that it will only use Business Account content to develop the social media site, and it will continue to collect date in accordance with its existing privacy policy. Still, there is little here that will make brands feel more in control of their intellectual property, unless the new ability to verify a brand page is comforting. Pinterest has not provided any meatier or additional copyright or trademark protections for Business Account holders.

Interestingly, in Pinterest’s “Visuals” guidelines, it tells brands not to use “a scripted P”, a “red and white P”, or “a pushpin,” not just on Pinterest itself but on any of the brand’s marketing materials.  Some of these trademark guidelines may be difficult for Pinterest to enforce and potentially overboard. The social media site is also claiming full ownership of the word “pin” or any variations, tacitly threatening to police its trademark actively. It is unclear what level of success it will have if takes an overly broad stand on its trademark rights.

Brand Promotion Guidelines Create Confusion

The new Logos, Trademarks and Marketing guidelines rightfully make it clear that the business must assess the legitimacy and lawfulness of its promotions. They encourage the use of official rules, a step too many marketers skip in social media promotions, and they point out the dangers of drafting rules without qualified legal help. The social media site’s internal guidelines use simple language but create some conundrums.

The guidelines ask promoters to do the following:

• Reward quality not quantity of pinning
• Link to your Pinterest board with other social media and websites
• Prevent spam and make sure your contest stays useful
• Make the contest clear and easy to understand

On the other hand, the guidelines prohibit:

• Encouraging spam, “such as asking participants to comment repeatedly.”
• Using the pin or repining functions to enter a promotion or asking pinners to vote with repins.
• Running contests, sweepstakes or promotions “too often.”
• Suggesting that Pinterest sponsors or endorses your business or your board.

Many of these guidelines are vague and it is hard to know how Pinterest will enforce them. For instance, how does one make sure one’s contest is “useful”, and “useful” for whom? How often is too often to run a contest? Will Business Account holders have to include language in their rules disclaiming association with Pinterest, such as they do with Facebook?

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, we will see these guidelines tweaked over time, just as Facebook has tightened up its guidelines’ language. In the meantime, businesses can promote their Pinboards authentically now. We will likely see an upsurge of Pinterest promotions as a result. Marketers should not only be sure their promotions not only pass legal muster with the 50 states, but also do their best to interpret and meet Pinterest’s stated terms of use.