Copyright question regarding Pinterest posts and used books

[Ferrus Manus]

It has recently come to my attention as a relatively new MSW user (2022-present) that MSW makes very serious efforts to enforce copyright laws regarding materials, both written and visual, that are used on the site. This is a good thing, and I agree with such measures. With that said, I would obviously like to stay on the right side of both the law and MSW policy, and so I have a few questions. 

 

1. I have found Pinterest to be of great value as a way to find primary-source images regarding different types of ships. I have, on many occasions, seen Pinterest images used as research aids and posted on the forum, including by myself.  Is that okay, or permitted under Fair Use laws? Who, if anyone, needs to be asked permission or compensated? Are there any citation rules? 

 

2. If I purchase a copy of a book, am I free to post self-taken images of a picture in my copy of the book on the forum, provided I already compensated the creator of the book and am using the materials for non-monetary purposes? 

 

P.S. It seems to me, under a very rudimentary understanding of the concept of Fair Use, that most of the copyrighted materials that would be posted to MSW fall under Fair Use laws, because they are used for research and scholarly purposes, and are not used for any kind of financial gain. Am I correct in this assumption? Or is there something I'm missing? 

 

[ccoyle]

29 minutes ago, Ferrus Manus said:

1. I have found Pinterest to be of great value as a way to find primary-source images regarding different types of ships. I have, on many occasions, seen Pinterest images used as research aids and posted on the forum, including by myself.  Is that okay, or permitted under Fair Use laws? Who, if anyone, needs to be asked permission or compensated? Are there any citation rules? 

 

2. If I purchase a copy of a book, am I free to post self-taken images of a picture in my copy of the book on the forum, provided I already compensated the creator of the book and am using the materials for non-monetary purposes? 

 

P.S. It seems to me, under a very rudimentary understanding of the concept of Fair Use, that most of the copyrighted materials that would be posted to MSW fall under Fair Use laws, because they are used for research and scholarly purposes, and are not used for any kind of financial gain. Am I correct in this assumption? Or is there something I'm missing? 

 

1. Pinterest users upload their own content and are responsible for abiding by copyright laws. Unfortunately, like many third-party sites, Pinterest will only go after IP infringement if the property's original owner files a take-down notice. I suspect that the world is awash in IP owners who are completely unaware that their content has been shared to Pinterest. If you share content from Pinterest to another site, such as MSW, you are responsible to make sure you have the legal right to do so. Bear in mind that Pinterest content consists mainly of images, and sharing an image constitutes sharing an entire creative work, which is not protected by fair use. For more, see https://policy.pinterest.com/en/copyright .
2. Fair use is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, based on how much of the original work has been shared and for what purpose. MSW users are very unlikely to ever share so much of a book that it risks being an infringement, but pictures in a book are usually owned by somebody, often somebody other than the author, and the images themselves may be subject to restrictions on their reproduction and distribution. It's up to you to know before you share. Hint: If you want to discuss some element in a photo, use a snipping tool to only show the portion you wish to discuss rather than the entire image.

The operative word in your last paragraph is "most." Yes, most copyrighted materials shared at MSW fall within the limits of fair use. But we also have a few members who don't give much thought to the matter and simply share material with reckless abandon. Most of those potential infringements will stay under the radar, and many IP owners do not have the resources to go after IP infringers. It's largely a matter of self-policing, and your MSW staff appreciates any and all efforts by members to play by the rules.

 

Cheers!

[Ferrus Manus]

@ccoyle All of the images I share/intend to share to the forum are primary-source images (I.e. from more than 50 years ago) that have been re-uploaded to MSW. Let's assume, for example, I share a download of a Pinterest post that's a picture of a cog on a coin. This would have been created centuries ago by an unknown artist. Does Pinterest itself have the rights to that image? Is it in creative commons? what about the poster of the image? If an image is not a creative work but rather a historical source, does copyright/fair use still apply? 

Edited yesterday at 01:44 AM by Ferrus Manus

[robert952]

If you want more details to @ccoyle input :  Link to copyright.gov.  It gives additional details to what is considered fair use. But it is summarized concisely above. 

 

 

[Ferrus Manus]

Robert, the government article you posted was very helpful. It seems as though use of copyrighted images for the purposes of scale modeling research, on a forum that doesn't really have an effect on the market for those photos, falls pretty cleanly under the definition of Fair Use. I'm assuming this is with the exception of images whose use is directly monetized. 

Edited yesterday at 01:52 AM by Ferrus Manus

[Kenchington]

On 7/4/2025 at 10:41 PM, Ferrus Manus said:

primary-source images (I.e. from more than 50 years ago)

There's another layer of complication here.

 

Many people suppose that, if they own an original artwork, they also own the copyright. While laws vary from one jurisdiction to another, generally that is false and everything is copyright-free once beyond some set age (25, 50 or 75 years, perhaps) or if the creator of the original died more than some number of years ago. However, large organizations that hold original artworks, such as art galleries and museums, look to cover their expenses through fees for re-use of their images. They get around the problem by making images available for publication subject to limitations to specified uses and contractual terms that forbid other uses that have not been paid for.

 

Thus, somebody might find a published reproduction of an 18th-Century painting (hence long out of copyright) but it would not necessarily be legal to scan that image and re-publish it, outside of the "fair use" limits. Then again, if the museum took its image-reproduction fee and failed to ensure that the licensed user included the appropriate wording in the published image caption, the image may have entered the pubic domain -- with the museum left to sue the licensed user for failure to follow its contractual obligations.

 

Commercial publishers presumably employ lawyers who understand this stuff and keep them on the legal side of the limits. Then again, they make enough money from book sales to pay those lawyers. People  posting things on Pinterest most likely ignore the rules, while the image-owners ignore the violations. MSW falls somewhere between the two and I can see why our moderators are concerned.

 

Trevor