Pinterest has released code to allow websites to prevent their material from being pinned on the social pinboard service in an effort to help creators protect their copyrights.
In a blog post, Pinterest said it respects the rights of copyright holders. It said it understood that many site owners did not want their material shareable on pinboards across Pinterest and as a result, the site has released code to prevent material from being pinned.
The piece of code is accessible through Pinterest’s help page. If a user tries to pin content where a site includes this code, they will see a message reading: “This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!”
Pinterest has introduced the code just as the site has begun to grow at an incredibly fast rate, seeing its daily users increase by 145pc since the start of 2012. The site, which lets users organise and share content from the web on pinboards, reached a target of 10m US monthly visitors more quickly than any independent website in history.
More than 100 brands are using the website and Pinterest has raised US$37.5m since October 2011.
Pinterest’s co-founder Ben Silbermann wrote on the blog that the company wants to “get better about answering questions openly” with those interested in the site and decided to tackle the issue of copyright first before it expands further.
