Are you talking about on one of your pin boards or the general one showing what you are following as in pinned by others and you might like too? the last one is the main page when you login. If the last one then they were likely pinned by others and you are just seeing them. You can pin any kitchen from any of the threads on here.

I have seen GW kitchens and other rooms posted across the net.

Pinterest shows suggested pins based on what you have pinned in the past and possibly your browsing history.

Thanks. I guess you lose your privacy once you post an image. I don't mind sharing with everyone on this fiorum, but I would not feel at all comfortable seeing pics of my home circulated on the net with what I would consider random people. I don't personally know anyone here, but I feel a certain level of trust with everyone, even if it is an illusion of sorts.

Perhaps i am in the wrong, but I've pinned a few kitchens as well as what not to do or wwyd again threads from this forum. I find it helpful having all the ideas and kitchens in one place rather than 23 different bookmarks in a folder. I like i can add my own thoughts or captions. Its made perfectly clear that im not owner of pictured kitchen. Not one of those owners has contacted me to take it down, if they did I would. However, I don't understand the privacy concerns. Why would you post here or make the pictures public on webshots,flickr or photo bucket where anyone could send a link to a random non member?

I have yet to post pictures, but when I do I will make sure there are no location tags and then be extremely flattered if my kitchen ever gets pinned (so long as it's not as an example of what not to do )

Lol, I saw a photo of my range in my kitchen on the Bluestar web site or FB page! The only place I posted that photo was right here on GW. (now we know someone at Bluestar follows GW) ...It didn't really bother me so much, but I was taken back at first to see my kitchen in a promo ad that asked "how would you like to own this Bluestar kitchen?" HaHa I already do, and it's not for sale! :)
I guess once you post a photo on the internet, it is pretty much free game...

Quoted:
"Thanks. I guess you lose your privacy once you post an image. I don't mind sharing with everyone on this fiorum, but I would not feel at all comfortable seeing pics of my home circulated on the net with what I would consider random people. I don't personally know anyone here, but I feel a certain level of trust with everyone, even if it is an illusion of sorts."

That's pretty much the case. Once you put an image on the internet it's out there and anyone can repost it with or without credit. I'm not saying they should, but it'll happen. If you are concerned about it, you can either not post images at all or put a watermark on it so at least noone can pass off as their own work.

On a related note, every once in a while there's a story that comes around of someone's family/child pictures being used in advertisements without permission. So if that's done with photos of people then clearly images of empty but pretty rooms will be used for all sorts of purposes.

Here is a link that might be useful: family photo used in ad without permission.

One time I found a picture of my bathroom on someone's blog. They were using it as a good example, so it didn't bother me at all. Anything you post on GW becomes their property. Anything you post publicly on the internet becomes the property of the world. If I had young kids I would never post their picture on GW. I might on FB because it is supposed to be private, but then your friends can download it, so IDK.

Just recently I googled something and found a picture of my kitchen on the internet!! It had nothing to do with the initial place I posted the picture. I was shocked seeing something so familiar to me "out there". But the truth is, my name was not on it, there was nothing to identify that it was my house. With all the similarity in kitchens in America and the world I doubt there is any real problem with it being there but it just felt weird!!! FYI quite awhile back there was a thread where someone asked if it was ok to pin her kitchen and the poster said it was ok. I saw that another couple of times in posts as well.

This post was edited by gr8day on Wed, Jan 15, 14 at 21:46

I admit to pinning a few, myself. However, my hours of being sucked in by Pinterest involve me tracing pictures back to their original sources for appropriate credit.

I can't believe anyone would be surprised, anyone would be surprised at "I guess you lose your privacy once you post an image.". HUH? Did you learn nothing from teenagers posting drunken, naked selfies? Be glad it's just a kitchen ...

I felt it was a compliment as long as credit was given. If someone has trouble with that, check out my Pinterest collection and LMK. I'll delete it, but that's probably a waste of time, given the photos are already online!

Edited to add:
I forgot to mention that I've almost gotten rid any bookmarks to photos or How-tos. I've pinned them. It's SO nice to have things all in one place!

This post was edited by CEFreeman on Thu, Jan 16, 14 at 11:36

I've always wondered whether it's okay to pin a kitchen (or home dec) pic from GW, so I was interested to see the responses in this thread. Just to be safe I have always just saved images for GW kitchens to my own computer or clipped the post within GW, that way I don't have to question whether it's okay or not. It would certainly be much more convenient (to me) to Pin images from GW so all my home-related inspiration is in one place, but I would hate to make anyone feel uncomfortable.

I've drooled at many of the GW kitchens, and still wish I had done more research. That said, it is quite an honor to be used in a promotion, but such a loss of privacy. I don't think a kitchen makes a house identifiable, though.

My son, the CS guy, took himself off FB etc a few years ago, and told me not to post anything about him. He is very cautious about anything he e-mails.

It is sad that we have to be so careful.

I've found my fireplace on Pinterest, and last year I found a picture of my kitchen cabinets, with curtains that I made, on a foreign website that was selling 'goose kitchen curtains.' There are no geese on my curtains, lol. I could complain to the commercial site, but I doubt that it would make a difference--as it's been noted, that's a chance we take.

I always obscure faces, portraits, and license plates, in any picture that I post.

Ah...so, here's the thing (speaking as a professional photographer who is constantly struggling with copyright issues with images being online and easily available)...

I'm not a copyright attorney, nor do I attempt to play one, so I'll explain in a way that may not be entirely to the letter of the copyright law.

In the US, copyright for images created are held by the photographer (the photographer may or may not be a professional). The photographer (at least in theory, and REALLY in reality) should be the only one that can release the image to be used in locations.

A photographer can opt to grant various rights to different people or businesses. When I provide images to my client's, there is a list of "do's and don'ts...while I try to educate, it's often difficult at best to enforce the "don't" area unless blatant misuse is found. I release images for "personal use", but not for any type of commercial use unless I am fairly compensated for that.

Pinterest, Houzz, and their various siblings sort of skirt around the issue...Houzz does a better job in that when you pull an image from there to post here, it does give at least rudimentary info about the image and to whom it originated.

Now, businesses that are taking those images and not asking the photographer about being able to use them (on their website, social media, marketing materials, etc.) are in violation of copyright.

Having said all of that, I realize that there is at least a reasonable chance that images that I'm posting out here are likely to wind up on Pinterest if I have something "good" that is of interest to people for their kitchen. I am comfortable with that. But, if a business wants to use images of my kitchen to promote their items in any of their promotional areas, we need to have a talk.

hmmmm... so according to andreak, Bluestar owes me for using my range/kitchen photo in a promo...maybe I can get some Bluestar cookware out of them, or at least an apron? ;)

ctycdm - haha - good luck on that! Most of the time, if you hit companies with the copyright infringement issue, they will just remove the photo from the site and you're done. Also, technically I believe that you need to register creative works and pay a fee to register them in order for them to be covered under the copyright infringement laws.

With the proliferation of images quite literally everywhere online, copyright and usage has become trickier and trickier.

Some online sites (social sites, etc) have (or have had) in the fine print of their terms and conditions that THEY may use your images for pretty much what ever they deem fit. All fun stuff, really. There's somewhat of an implied consent for images to be used/strewn about the web when you post them somewhere that is for public viewing.

But, really, Bluestar should have at the least ASKED the person who took the photo (if that was you that did so, then yes, they should have contacted you) if it was okay to use the image and received permission.

Looking at their site where they are showing "customer images", they are saying that the images were "submitted by such-and-such"...leading a person to believe that they did receive at least implied permission to use the photos for the website as I would guess that Bluestar had contact with these people who sent the images. Where it gets a little more murky is if they decide to start printing literature, ads, or other things like that...at the least again, they should have asked prior to using it for those purposes.

ctycdm -- thanks for the tip about the BlueStar FB page -- found my kitchen over there too! I post my photos on Flickr, and I go with the Creative Commons setting that allows people to use my photos with attribution. Often this means that I'm asked for permission to use them, but way more often, they're just used willy-nilly. Sometimes there's attribution, sometimes there's not.

I also saw another GW'rs kitchen on Bluestar not too long ago.
Can't think of their name - Stainless range with turquoise knobs, at the end of a galley with open shelves on either side...

ctycdm -- yup, that's me with the turquoise knobs :-)

You can get all the information needed about any photo, post,site, by using a right click and selecting element. The amount of information will tell you all that is needed regarding who/what/when/where. And yes you lose all rights to this once posted.

A little late in the game too, but using a common word for your user name also keeps a lot of info at bay. Running a search on user names can track you all over the place. A common word usually shows tons of info relating to the word rather than the user.

Not sure about GW, but many sites will add code to keep you from copying an image or when copied it is so small is of no use. Techies can get through this one, but for the majority it is a non issue.

I really don't have anything of importance to worry about a copy. A bad photo resolution will keep most at bay. But did decide I wasn't up to posts being read through searches and take caution regarding information written.

It does bother me that commercial sites do not contact the original photo poster and request use. But maybe they think it will cost them something. Publications usually have an ownership by having a contract signed for no other use. Quite a few of us copy these and post them instead of linking. If GW owns the rights, can't they deny use? Haven't read the whole rights info, it may be that photos are public domain once here.

Haven't seen this for years, but long ago there was a logo you could paste on the corner of a photo. It was a red circle with a slash across a pair of scissors. If the photo was copied, so was the logo. At least it showed that the poster had copied something another did not want used.