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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 01:56 am UTC (link)

Wowwwww.

Okay, personal anecdote time. My father was a graphic artist, and he was pretty good at copying styles. When I was like 5, (meaning, this was in the early 70s), he did a couple of free pictures for my grade school. They were done on 3'x4' pieces of mat-board, or something around that size. They were these big group shots of all kinds of Disney animated characters (up to that time) in the same picture.

The school framed them and hung them in the hallway. I think -- my memory is SO fuzzy on this -- that there might have been a tiny little write-up about it in some local paper (could have just been the school paper) with a picture of me posing alongside them. I *am* sure that there's a color version of those pictures somewhere amongst our family photo collection.

By the time I got to high school, the elementary school (across the street from the h.s.) wasn't being used as a school any more, it was just admin offices for the school district; but they still had the pictures hanging in the hallway. (Aside: it was always freaky to go in there, now that all adults worked in the building, because of course it still had the old bathrooms and water fountains that were sized for grade-schoolers.) I have no idea what later became of those pictures. For all I know they're still there now, or someone might have taken them home, or I don't know, threw them away. Man, I should dig up those family photos.

Anyway, what I'm saying is -- LOL, I guess it's lucky that in the 70s, little innocuous local things like that stayed local and it was a lot harder for The Mouse to track down weird little "infringements" like that. I wonder how many other places around the country were in the same boat as that daycare center?

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