Pinterest expands content attribution to Etsy, Kickstarter

Internet social corkboard Pinterest announced today that it is providing more attribution tools for sites such as Etsy, 500px, Kickstarter, Slideshare, and SoundCloud, linking to the content's source and giving full credit.

The social-sharing site, which launched in March 2010, lets users collect videos, photos, and other "things they love" from around the Internet and "pin" them on interest-specific boards. Users can then respond to that pin by commenting on it, liking it, or repinning it as one of their own favorites.

A backlash by content creators not too appreciative of having their creations posted on the site without credit led photo-sharing site Flickr to add an "opt out" code to all Flickr pages with copyrighted or protected images. Pinterest itself even issued a code to Web admins that warned visitors that the site did not allow pinning to Pinterest.

Pinterest wants "to try to give credit where credit is due," the site said in a blog post today. "That's why we've always tried to include attribution and direct links to sources of content."

Pinterest unveiled attribution in May, with rollouts to Flickr, YouTube, Behance, and Vimeo. Today's announcement expands the reach of the program.

One of the companies in today's announcement, SoundCloud, said it was "unmuting" Pinterest, allowing users to listen to SoundCloud music on the social-sharing site.

Pinterest has experienced phenomenal growth recently, doubling its number of daily unique visitors to 4 million in the first four months of this year, according to data released last month by social-media marketer Tamba. The company closed a $100 million round of financing last month that gave it a valuation of $1.5 billion.