Attention: The internet Isn’t really Public Domain [Internet]

Back in 2005, Monica Gaudio wrote a pleasant piece about apple pie recipes for a medieval cookery enthusiast blog. Five years later, her post appeared nearly verbatim-without compensation or permission-in Cooks Source magazine. And then it got worse.

Assuming a good mistake were made, Gaudio reached out to Cooks Source-a non-profit publication with a listed circulation of 17,000-28,000 readers-asking first for clarification, then for compensation (inside the kind of a $130 donation to Columbia J-School) and a broadcast apology. Instead, she got this response from Cooks Source managing editor Judith Griggs:

But honestly Monica, the net is thought of as ” public domain” and try to be happy we just didn’t ” lift” your entire article and put some other person’s name on it! It happens a whole lot, clearly more than you’re conscious of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. In the event you took offence [sic] and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a qualified should know that the item we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is way better now than was originally.

Which is several shades of incorrect! The ” need of editing” Griggs is touching on involved fixing up all those pesky, true-to-period 16th century English spellings. As for public domain, let’s use this as a chance to study the foundations of the wild west we here call the net, as shared by UMUC :

Copyright and Electronic Publishing

* An identical copyright protections exist for the author of a work despite whether the work is in a database, CD-ROM, bulletin board, or on the web.
* In case you make a replica from an electronic source, akin to the web or WWW, on your personal use, it’s more likely to be seen as fair use. However, whenever you make a duplicate and put it in your personal WWW site, it less prone to be considered fair use.
* The web SHOULDN’T BE the public domain. There are both uncopyrighted and copyrighted materials available. Assume a work is copyrighted.

Emphasis added.

So! Apart from the reminder she need to be outright grateful that in any case her name was still on the piece, Gaudio hasn’t received any apology or retraction yet. New media remains to be media, guys! In point of fact, you may argue that it’s the media. So let’s all play nice within the sandbox. [ LiveJournal , Image credit: Gode Cookery , thanks Guru!]

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This post is tagged: apple pie recipes, college campuses, copyright protections, electronic publishing, electronic source, managing editor, source magazine