What NOT to do when you steal copyrighted material, UPDATED with new info link Options

[saleeka]

I found this insane story on a social media site after having some free time on my hands this morning, and just could not resist sharing this mind-boggling situation involving plagiarism, copyright, and nearly certain legal action. It's a longer read, but well worth it in my opinion!

A woman by the name of Monica Gaudio originally wrote and copyrighted an article revolving around apple pie including elements of its history that ran in an online publication back in 2005. 5 years pass and a friend of Monica's alerts her that her story appeared in a recent edition of Cooks Source, a small magazine publication that circulates in western New England. After seeing the article from Cooks Source, Monica determined that they'd basically stripped her story right off the website that originally ran it and stuck it in their magazine. Monica decides to e-mail the publication's editor, Judith Griggs, to ask how they obtained the article, and to request an apology and a $130 donation to the Columbia Journalism School (approximately 10 cents per word ripped from the original). The following is just a portion of the e-mail Judith sends back to Monica:

"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!" (On a side note, the original article did not need editing; it contained medieval spellings of words from old-time recipes)

This response obviously PISSED Monica OFF! She blogged about it, and word of what went down started to spread like wildfire. Next thing you know, thousands of also irritated people start going ape on Cooks Source's Facebook page, leading to a possible hacking and ensuing mayhem. Blogging sites pick up on this, and some savvy people (presumably journalists) come up with two clever ideas that put Cooks Source in some seriously hot water.

For one, people start sending in complaints to the advertisers that pay to be in Cooks Source in an attempt to dry up their funding. But it's the other trick up their sleeve that really makes the ish hit the fan. Sensing that this probably wasn't the first time Judith outright stole other people's work on account of her outrageous e-mail response, someone brilliant takes the time to find some other plagiarized stories from the Cooks Source website and then creates a separate Facebook account displaying hyperlinks to these Cooks Source stories, along with links to the original ripped off articles from various sources!

Other people then join in to add to the list, which grows considerably. Shockingly, not all the plagiarized material came from never-heard-of before sources. Some of the more recognizable owners of the original material include Paula Dean, Food Network, NPR, Martha Stewart, and probably most surprising of all, Disney (if there ever was a company known to not tolerate copyright infringement, it would be Disney).

As many have already assumed, Judith's days as a journalist must surely be numbered, and the same must be said of New England's Cooks Source. In all seriousness, how can a magazine editor be SO STUPID?

Gawker story link

This post has been edited by saleeka: Nov 16, 2010 - 6:08 PM