The Dust Bunny Mafia Leaves Pinterest

If you go to Pinterest.com right now and search for the Dust Bunny Mafia, you won’t find anything. But, if you would have searched for Dust Bunny Mafia a few weeks ago you would have found about 20 illustrations of the individual family members and a few of the audience-favorite Customer Service comics as well. Then all of the sudden, like Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects, “Poof! They’re gone.”

So, What Made Them Leave?

The answer to why the Dust Bunny Mafia is no longer on Pinterest is a simple one, I don’t agree with their Terms of Service. Now if you are like most people, when you go to a website, install new software or fill out an application, when you come across the Terms of Service (fine print) section you gloss over it and check the box that you read over the terms and agree to it. I did that too, because frankly, I was in too big of a hurry to use the site that I didn’t want to read the fine print.

A few weeks after joining the site and actively publishing my Dust Bunny Mafia characters to boards, I stumbled upon an article highlighting the much-glossed-over Terms of Service. After reading the article I took a closer look at the Terms and here is the part that I do not agree with:

Member Content
… By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services. Cold Brew Labs does not claim any ownership rights in any such Member Content and nothing in these Terms will be deemed to restrict any rights that you may have to use and exploit any such Member Content.

Now that’s a mouthful. Essentially it says that, “They are able to SELL, transfer, stream, sublicense, use, adapt, modify, LICENSE and otherwise EXPLOIT your member content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.” ¹

Yeah, the Dust Bunnies have just left the building. The only person/company that should be able to make a profit from my Dust Bunnies is me, unless I have entered into an agreement of the professional nature, i.e. toys, figurines, video game, movie, etc.

The fine print isn’t fun to read, but it’s worth it. I have learned my lesson and that’s why the Dust Bunnies left Pinterest. What about you?

Are you on a site that has the capability to exploit your business without your knowledge? If so, what are you going to do about it?