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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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ardath_rekha
2010-11-05 03:22 am UTC (link)

It'll probably follow her all the way to bankruptcy court, actually. A whole bunch of internet sleuths have now linked other thefts to actual magazines and books, many of them published by gigantic take-no-prisoners corporations. Each of those thefts could cost her up to $150,000 since they're actually fully protected by copyright, with Library of Congress registrations. And several of the sources are notoriously protective of their copyrights. The Internet will have forgotten her long before she has to stop bending over for them.

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	agent_hyatt 2010-11-05 03:40 am UTC (link)
	But at that point, she's not bending over for the internet, but for the skeletons in her closet that the internet uncovered. Chickens, home, roost, etc. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

ardath_rekha
2010-11-05 03:49 am UTC (link)

Yup.

From what I can see, she either started or bought the magazine in '97, and then attempted to sell it in '99 because it was a failure... so maybe when she couldn't sell it she hit on a "novel" way of making it profitable: stop actually paying writers for their stories... but not telling them that she'd used those works. She could set up an ad budget that reflected not only printing costs but acquisition of photos and articles... but pocket all of the latter money for herself.

If I'm right, this is going to balloon because it won't be long before every single issue of the magazine, for the last 10+ years, gets thoroughly interrogated. And given what each breach of copyright is potentially worth... well, I'll be curious to see if the cumulative result is actually turned over to the criminal courts under "fraud and racketeering."

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	ealusaid 2010-11-05 05:20 am UTC (link)
	From that perspective, she was really stupid to leave the issues up on Facebook. It would take a little longer if someone had to scan/retype old back issues that are probably hard to find. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	bigbigtruck 2010-11-05 02:07 pm UTC (link)
	Hoooo-leeeee shit wow. (Reply to this)(Parent)

vorpal_blade
2010-11-06 03:31 am UTC (link)

When you think about it, the really stupid move she made was to keep Monica's name on the article. Since it had been "corrected" from the original medieval English, this might never have been detected if she hadn't associated the original author with the work she stole from her. Just another way doesn't understand the internet--if Monica's friend hadn't found the article and congratulated Monica (I'm sure she had no idea what she would set in motion1), Monica herself might have found it eventually by Googling herself, which sounds like an exercise in vanity, but people do it when they want to keep an eye on their public image.

OTOH, I'm betting Judith Griggs won't be Googling herself anytime soon... She really wouldn't like what she's likely to find.

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ardath_rekha
2010-11-09 04:37 pm UTC (link)

Actually, she would probably still have gotten caught, because the friend of Monica's, who recognized the article and contacted her, was involved in its original publication on Gode Cookery. So if her name had actually been left off, things might have been even more explosive from the start, because then it would have been a clear-cut case of plagiarism as well as copyright infringement.

I'll be interested to see what happens with the article that was taken from WebMD, given that in that case, Griggs did change the name of the author. Not a good move but one she more or less admitted to making in her letter to Monica, when she said that Monica ought to be grateful it hadn't been done to her. WebMD may not have lawyers quite as powerful as, say, the Mouse, but I'm betting they can make her hurt.

In my university's Com 101 program, students are urged to Google themselves on a regular basis just to find out what prospective employers are likely to see if they do it. So hopefully people won't think of it as an exercise in vanity for much longer, and more as an exercise in self-preservation. Ms. Griggs can sure serve as an object lesson about what happens when you don't value your reputation enough to stay honest.

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ladybirdsleeps
2010-11-05 03:32 pm UTC (link)

I don't feel too bad about that; that's the punishment for the crime.

Also "can cost her up to $150,000" doesn't mean "will cost her up to $150,000." That would be a worst-case scenario and isn't all that likely to happen. My feeling is that she'll most likely settle with the big players to avoid going to court in the first place. She could lose a lot of money, but losing millions? Doubt it.

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	ahiru 2010-11-05 05:21 pm UTC (link)
	And no matter how much she loses it amuses me to know that it'll still probably be more than the mere $130 it would've cost her to make things right with Monica and thus avoid the whole Internet dogpile in the first place. Yeah, not really feeling too sorry for Judith Griggs. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ladybirdsleeps 2010-11-05 06:07 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah. The reason that this blew up is that she was so unbelievably rude. If she had just paid - or even refused to pay, but in a less insulting manner - it probably would have just stayed confined to writer's circles. The thing I like most about this wank is imagining that she'll have to, eventually, admit that she was wrong. Probably as part of a settlement. (Reply to this)(Parent)

ardath_rekha
2010-11-06 02:06 am UTC (link)

Yeah, I doubt she has millions to lose, anyway. But I'm also intrigued by the possibility that there could be jail time. Because if she's been claiming to, say, the IRS that she actually paid for those articles, or even just claimed that to her advertisers when she set the ad prices, there could be fraud charges or even tax fraud charges in her future.

She really shoulda just stolen a recipe for crow pie and eaten a little when Monica contacted her; she might have managed to stay under the radar for a few more years that way. But the sheer magnitude of the possible penalties she could be facing is more than a little delicious to think about.

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