I can’t ignore the current controversy surrounding Cooks Source magazine (and web site) and copyright law on the web. There are two huge issues here, only one of which is getting the attention it deserves. The issues should be examined dispassionately; unfortunately ‘dispassion’ (if I can coin that word) appears to have left the building.
If you’ve missed the controversy du jour, the facts, briefly are these: Monica Gaudio, a blogger on the Gode Cookery web site, discovered that a post she wrote in 2005 (about the history of apple pie, no less, and it’s a fascinating story) had been lifted, word for word, by Cooks Source magazine and posted to their web site. Both print article and web posting credited Gaudio, but she had never been contacted, or her permission asked for. When she contacted Cooks Source, she was told by the editor there, Judith Griggs, (here comes the controversy) that anything posted online was in the public domain anyway and was not covered by copyright protection.
Since Griggs' reply has been posted all over the web, I have to repeat it here:
"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!... 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 [it] was originally.... For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain… 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!"
So that’s the first part of the story. Griggs is wrong of course. Material on the web is not in the public domain; it is covered by copyright law like any other original material. Using it without permission is plagiarism, like it would be if it existed in any other medium. Cut and paste may be easy, but that doesn’t make it okay. In another post, Griggs claims to have been doing this for ‘three decades’ so I don’t know if that makes her ignorance harder to understand or perhaps easier. But anyway, you get the point.
But that’s only Act One of this drama. The second act began as Twitter and the blogosphere lit up with netizens in full fury. Gaudio posted the exchange above on her own blog and the story went viral: attacks on Griggs and her web site followed. At full fury, thousands of posts, tweets etc. flamed Cooks Source and Griggs personally. Things had, within a day, turned decidedly ugly. The mob was on the march.
Take a look at the Cooks Source FaceBook page and you’ll see what I mean. The nicest posts are mocking and critical; the worst are mean and nearly venomous. In addition to the flames, Griggs and Cooks Source have been satirized, with bogus versions of each now at large on FaceBook and Twitter in parody form. If you search for this controversy, it’s hard to know now what is original and what is satire.
When the flaming started, Griggs made a flippant attempt to apologize, but it only showed that she still didn’t get it and therefore only made matters worse. By now Griggs, posting on the Cooks Source FaceBook page, has been reduced to alternating between pleading to be left alone and threatening to report the ‘hackers’ to the FCC (!). Perhaps not surprisingly, her pleadings have only served to incite the mob further.
There are so many ways to look at this issue. I’m the last person to defend Griggs’ wrong-headed interpretation of the way IP ownership and plagiarism works on the web. She’s dead wrong in her actions and her thinking, and needs to be told so. But I’m also the last person to participate in an online lynching, which is what this has turned into.
Griggs and her team probably work on a shoestring, and get paid accordingly. Their foodie magazine is a freebie confined to ‘western New England’, with a circulation of less than 30,000, supported by advertising. (Incidentally, the mob has turned on the advertisers as well, in an attempt to put the whole enterprise out of business.) That Griggs is (or at least was) ignorant of copyright law is now well established. That she is careless, condescending and snooty, is also hard to deny. The voice of the crowd was right to correct her. But when is enough enough?
The current wisdom is that the web can police itself, and the crowd will drive out unacceptable behavior. But the tyranny of the majority and the rule of the mob presents an ugly dark side to the wide open, lightly regulated environment of the web. Persecution, mass-flaming and piling-on should not be condoned. I’ve posted about this subject before; cyber bullying has terrible consequences that poison the on-line world for all of us.
I’m not sure which part of this story disturbs me more: the flippant ignorance about copyright law, which (make no mistake) many besides Griggs share – or the aftermath, in which gleefully malicious mob behavior inflicts punishment far greater than what was justified by the original offense.
(Many tech and media sites are covering this story. If you want all the gory details, I recommend the coverage by MSNBC and CNET.)
3 comments:
It seems to me that this "firestorm," as some are labeling it, is a prime example of increased connectivity having impaired our ability to stop and think before communicating a thought. Instant access elicits sometimes awful responses that demonstrate little or no forethought. Seems the old "engage brain before opening mouth" a high school teacher loved to quote at us should be expanded to include "and before posting online."
That low tech stuff paper and pen, forced at least some review of what one had written before sending it off. Twitter (full disclosure - I'm on twitter and love it, mostly), Facebook, blogs, the ability to comment on every article or blog post, invites instant action in the heat of first emotional response to an article, essay, post or news item. We think that giving readers of online materials instantaneous response capabilities promotes dialog. I'm beginning to wonder if it really does - at least, it doesn't seem to encourage any kind of civil exchange.
Now, I wonder if I'll wish I'd reviewed this comment more before clicking "post comment."
In real life I work as a librarian.. very much attuned to copyright issues.
Victoria
Hello Howard, I am delighted to be reading your blog! Your story is fascinating and sad. I drilled down into CNET, which lead me to the facebook page, which lead me to cooksource.com - which has been closed down, only a statement remains.
As a new blog writer myself, I looked through all the articles for a link to a source which can explain what IS CONSIDERED proper refrencing of other material online. Is it ok to link to another site/article? Is it ok to write some text that refrences content as long as you do not copy the content itself (without permission?)
I do think it's a shame that all the focus is on the negativity when what is most important is that folks learn how to do it properly. Thank you for a great article.
I think is is a good use of using the internet to bring awareness of blatant violation of laws. In this case it was violation of copyright law.
This is where the internet Mob can come to the rescue. So many users were outraged by the behavior (many did take it too far) but the crowd ruled and the outcome was Cooks Source being 'punished' for their 'crimes'
It is wrong for any publication to profit from plagiarization. It would be difficult/ expensive to fight this in courts. In my opinion it's better to go to the court of your peers and let them judge the actions. Let me coin a phrase "P2P Law" if people feel something is wrong I feel it is our duty to be out spoken about it and do what we can (within the confines of existing laws) to correct it.
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