Cooks Source magazine masters new recipe: How to annoy the Internet

By Rob Pegoraro

In case you were wondering, posting something on the Internet does not -- as a matter of copyright law or common practice -- turn it into public-domain material that anybody can reuse at will.

The folks at Cooks Source, a formerly obscure food magazine based in Sunderland, Mass., apparently were confused on that point. So they saw fit to copy and rework an article found online,

"A Tale of Two Tarts", for their October issue.

Bad enough. But when the original author, Monica Gaudio, spotted the copy and e-mailed the magazine to ask for an apology and a $130 donation to the Columbia School of Journalism, she did not get a helpful reply. As recounted on her blog, Cooks Source editor Judith Griggs send back a tone-deaf response. It first offered a tepid apology -- "It was 'my bad' indeed" -- and then plunged right off a cliff:

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.

I e-mailed the magazine but haven't received a response yet. I'll update this post if I get one.

The sad thing is, had Griggs simply taken one of Gaudio's recipes and reworked that, she'd be on safer ground, legally speaking. You can't copyright a list of ingredients.

Anyway, within hours after Gaudio posted that last night, her story of copy theft had begun richocheting around the Internet. The magazine's Web site is mainly a placeholder, directing people to its Facebook page -- and that's where things got ugly. Anybody can "Like" a Facebook page and start posting comments on it that, by default, will be the first thing visitors see when they arrive.

You can guess how that worked out: The page has been overrun by vituperative commentary, some making snarky but insightful points and others just yelling. (Readers with delicate sensibilities should be advised that much of it features the sort of language heard in sports bars, frat houses and newsrooms; it was not easy to take a screengrab that wasn't littered with f-bombs.) I'm almost starting to feel sorry for Griggs, though I suppose she can take some comfort in all the new "fans" the magazine's page has run up.

Dear Internet, I think you've made your point. You can let up now. Though if any other print editor makes this mistake again after this fiasco -- by all means, let 'em have it.

(3:27 p.m. Reader "porcupine88" noted a discussion brewing on the Cooks Source page of other instances of alleged plagiarism involving the likes of NPR, Martha Stewart Living, Food Network and Weight Watchers. The journalistic crime is the same either way, but doing a copy-and-paste job on companies that have lawyers on staff to watch out for this kind of thing is insanely ill-advised.)

(10:21 p.m. Earlier this evening, Griggs--or somebody with access to the Cooks Source page--posted a less-than-apologetic apology. It starts off "Well, here I am with egg on my face! I did apologise to Monica via email, but aparently it wasnt enough for her" and then observes "You did find a way to get your 'pound of flesh...' we used to have 110 'friends,' we now have 1,870... wow!" The posting doesn't mention the other plagiarism allegations. As such, it leaves so many unanswered questions. For example, what's up with all the "surplus" quotation marks?)