Print magazine accused of copyright infringement after lifting blog article

by Steven Mostyn - Nov 5 2010, 06:31

Imagine the furore it would cause if I lifted an article from a print magazine, typed it up on The Tech Herald, and attempted to pass it off as original content without a thought for attaining permission from the author, issuing payment, or even offering proper source accreditation. I’d find myself floundering up Crap Creek without a paddle.

However, it would appear that such despicable behaviour should be tolerated by the blogosphere if it’s a print magazine doing the lifting. Moreover, college student and cookery blogger Monica Gaudio claims that magazine ‘Cooks Source’ published her 2005 ‘Gode Cookery’ article on medieval apple tarts without contacting her and without offering any kind of recompense.

Informed of the article’s publication after it had been discovered by a friend, Gaudio explains that when she contacted the magazine looking for nothing more than a printed apology and a $130 USD donation to the Columbia School of Journalism (the equivalent of 10 cents per word), the editor replied by suggesting she should just be grateful for the exposure in light of the original article’s poor quality.

“The web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it,” outlined the somewhat terse response from Cooks Source managing editor Judith Griggs. “If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than [it] was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio.”

“We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me!” added Griggs in the quoted reply posted on Gaudio's blog. “I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… always for free!”

While you could argue that no press is bad press, the Internet has reacted to Gaudio’s story of alleged copyright violation by bombarding the official Cooks Source Facebook page with comments directly and indirectly criticising its actions.

“I think I’ll just rip off all of Cooks Source magazine, publish it under my own name and say “Too bad!” said Ryan Holmes. “To be honest I’ve never heard of you before, but this is unconscionable, arrogant and you deserve every ounce of bad publicity you get for this act.”

“Cooks Source lifted the apostrophe from their own name,” added Adam Hart amid a rush of damning quips that saw Paul Hoy write: “Cooks Source double parks in designated handicapped spaces,” while Steph Bairey preferred: “Cooks Source shot Mr. Burns and blamed it on Maggie.” 

“Wow, you fail at copyright law AND at apologizing. The only thing you don’t fail at it plagiarism,” commented Shaunna Hopkins. “Way to not actually apologize and blow everything off like all the lawyers in the world aren’t about to squash you like a… well, a squash.” 

Adding to the backlash presently being directed at Cooks Source, Facebook users are apparently delving deeper into the magazine’s printed content in an attempt to uncover other instances of copyright infringement.

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