Entry tags:

Public domain... I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.
I came across this on twitter, thanks to John Scalzi.

Back in 2005, Monica Gaudio wrote an Ice Dragon (? I don't know what this is.) entry called A Tale of Two Tarts that appeared on the Godecookery website. It is copyrighted and on a web-domain that Monica herself owns.

Last week, a friend contacted her, asking her how she had gotten published! Monica's answer "I... didn't?"

Turns out, she had. The magazine Cooks Source (Facebook here, they are also a paper publication.) had lifted her article from the Godecookery site and put it in their magazine.

She contacts the magazine via phone and then through the "Contact Us" link on the website, and exchanges emails with them. Finally, they ask her "what she wants." She replies that she wants an apology on Facebook, a printed apology in the magazine, and $130 donated to the Columbia School of Journalism.

What she got in response was this (quoted from her post):

Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was "my bad" indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.

But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. 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. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!

Monica is rightfully mad.

nihilistic_kid on LJ has a post about it here as well. And Scalzi posted on his blog as well.

And John Scalzi linked to his recipe for Schadenfreude Pie on the Cooks Resource Facebook wall here, with a plea that they "don't steal it." Bwah!

EDIT: The Smart Bitches have picked it up.

Also, people are looking. And unshockingly, this isn't the first time this has happened. This Pancetta and Green Onion Tart? Is copyright to Giada deLaurentiis, and appears on the Food Network website under her name.

EDIT of "Oh Fuck, The Internet is Here" - The cookssource.com website is down. Dear Author and Gawker have both picked it up.

EDIT the Heidipology: This is the last one from me, anything else will have to go into the comments, cause I'm going out and having me a drink from a non-plagiarized source. Judith Griggs has "apologised" via the wall of the Facebook account. Facebook is linked up above. Marvel, will you? (Screencap here in case she takes it down.)

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sgaana
2010-11-05 01:32 am UTC (link)

See below -- my guess actually is that past a certain number of "nasty" comments, she won't keep reading. Yes, she knows that she's received a ton of comments, and reading a small sample suggests that they're all nasty. I would bet money that she isn't going to read through them all.

If she doesn't read through them all, she won't have any idea of where all this has been linked (she doesn't strike me as the type who regularly reads Boing Boing or the Consumerist or would be following Neil Gaiman's Twitter, you know?), nor of the Internet Sleuth-work being done to trace the sources of other articles from her magazine, nor that those rightsholders have been notified.

Right now she may be feeling no dread and panic at all. She may be a little upset at those rude people on the internet, but also just be discounting them as juvenile name-calling trolls. If she is that secure in her notion that she's in the right, then I can see her blithely dismissing all of the "rude friends" of that "silly internet writer".

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duraniedrama
2010-11-05 01:43 am UTC (link)

Right now she may be feeling no dread and panic at all. She may be a little upset at those rude people on the internet, but also just be discounting them as juvenile name-calling trolls. If she is that secure in her notion that she's in the right, then I can see her blithely dismissing all of the "rude friends" of that "silly internet writer".

Which means I can't WAIT until she gets the first C&D legal notice that's going to be coming down the pike.

Disney. She ripped off Disney. Foolish mortal.

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	sgaana 2010-11-05 01:45 am UTC (link)
	The saddest part is that that likely won't play out in a public way that we'll get to see. We'll just have to imagine it. Personally I am imagining her receiving C&Ds from Disney, Food Network, NPR, and Martha Stewart all on successive days. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	vampychick 2010-11-05 04:29 am UTC (link)
	I've always imagined a C&D from Disney to involve, like, actual Great Whites in suits showing up to repossess your firstborn. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	beachlass 2010-11-05 01:40 pm UTC (link)
	So a C&D from Martha Stewart might be enlosed in a handmade envelope with tasteful decoupage? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	vampychick 2010-11-05 04:44 pm UTC (link)
	Possibly with a delightful dead mackerel. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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