Frugal Foodie Mama: Some Thoughts on Pinterest Plagiarism...

Friday, February 1, 2013

Some Thoughts on Pinterest Plagiarism...

This has become a tiny thorn in my side recently- pinning a recipe post and then in the description box for the pin including the ENTIRE recipe in a condensed version of itself.  Here is why this is not cool, folks:

A.  All of us food bloggers appreciate a pin.  I have had recipes go absolutely viral from a single pin.  They are MUCH appreciated.  What is not appreciated?  Posting our entire recipe on your pin so that there is NO reason for anyone who sees and/or repins your pin of our recipe to ever visit our blogs. 

B.  It is our recipes.  Not yours.  Call it what you may, but you are basically swiping our content bold face from our blogs and "putting it your own words".  You know what they call that in college?  Plagiarism. 

C.  Most of us who identify ourselves as food bloggers work very hard on our recipe posts.  We brainstorm a recipe idea.  Do research.  Experiment in the kitchen with it, all while striving to get some quality photos of our dishes.  We want people to actually click to our posts and see our hard work.  This is why we blog- we take pride in what we put out there.  Please be respectful of that.

I am not saying that there is some sinister plot out there by Robin Hood-esque Pinners to swipe recipes from the food bloggers & give them to the Pinterest masses.  In fact, I am sure that many of the Pinners who have committed this breach of pinning etiquette haven't even thought of the 3 points I have outlined above.  

I am grateful for Pinners who stumble upon my blog or another Pinner's pin of one of my recipes and repin away.  Pinterest has been my #1 referring site for the past 3 months.  I have seen my daily page views double, even triple from Pinterest traffic recently.

Thank you to each and every one of you that has happened to have found one of my recipes clever enough, tasty enough, creative enough to pin.  I appreciate it. 
But please keep my content where it should be... on my blog.

As a Pinner, what are your thoughts on this?
My fellow food bloggers, are you seeing similar pins from your blogs?  How do you feel about them?