Copyright Online

Two posts in one day? I know that's rare for me, but I had to help spread the word about a news story brought up in my class discussion forum today. There seems to be a story that's gone viral on the web regarding copyright infringement.

The story basics: a magazine by the name of Cooks Source seems to be getting a lot of its material via copyright infringement. The magazine is literally taking articles found across the web, doing some light re-writing (or no re-writing) and reprinting the articles without giving credit to the original authors. One article, "The Cooks Source Scandal: How a Magazine Profits on Theft," lists six confirmed cases of blatant plagiarism, with possibly more that have just not been discovered or confirmed yet. One of the writers who had her piece lifted without a by-your-leave wrote about it on her livejournal page. She also posted an excerpt from the response she got from the magazine's editor, Judith Griggs. I think that it's criminal that Griggs told the writer "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 was originally" and "We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me!" The writer is still comtemplating going ahead with legal action; for her sake and the sake of all past and future victims of this magazine's publishing practice, I hope she decides to sue them.

This writer has gotten a lot of support from around the web from other writers and non-writers alike. Neil Gaiman, a published author (and one I really like) also tweeted about it. People seemed to be outraged, and rightly so. The publicity that this story and the topic of copyright has gotten has really made me think about what I post here. I do post recipes, some of which either me or my family have created, and some which I've found online or from other sources. From the ones that I have no claim to, I do always try to give credit to the original source, even though I end up re-writing the steps in the recipe to match the way I end up preparing the food. Copyright can be a slippery slope, and it's a hot topic both in my class and around the web right now.

So I guess I'll close with a word of caution. Give credit where credit is due.