10 ms·

A Follow-Up to "The Web is Public Domain"

165 points by callmeed 16y ago

callmeed 16y ago
See: http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1868736 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1868736
- studer 16y ago
  Also: http://illadore.livejournal.com/32647.html http://illadore.livejournal.com/32647.html
yalurker 16y ago
Wow, reading this didn't give me any sympathy for her at all. I'm reminded of the episode of South Park where Cartman feels bad only about getting punished, no actual guilt or remorse for his crime, and fails to understand how the other kids can feel bad in any way other than because of punishment. She steals someone else's work, gets caught and sends an arrogant, rude email with absurd claims (web is public domain) and then when she is hit with the internet backlash, she writes a post that it's not her fault because she was overworked and throws in an insincere apology where she still clearly doesn't believe she did anything wrong ("I think I did a nice job for you"). The original article didn't irk me nearly as much as her rebuttal. Quite frankly, if this really does put them out of business, they deserve it.
- landhar 16y ago
  "The original article didn't irk me nearly as much as her rebuttal. Quite frankly, if this really does put them out of business, they deserve it." That's exactly what I thought upon reading this. And the reference to South Park is gold :-)
- adamesque 16y ago
  If that list of plagiarized articles is accurate, she certainly seemed to have it coming, but you'll have to forgive me if I can't feel awesome about the victory of asymmetrical internet mob justice over a small-time regional magazine. God forbid they ever smell blood in the water you're swimming in.
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    Phoning to say "you're an utter asshole", while not a nice thing to do, is still not exactly the same as lynching someone. Tone down the hyperbole a bit, please.
    - mtigas 16y ago
      Sure, but thousands of people phoning in to say “you’re an utter asshole” — leading to the site’s closure — isn’t simply “not a nice thing to do,” though. They got what they deserved, but if it ain’t “mob justice,” I don’t know what else to call it. The Internet, en masse, certainly has a pulse and life of it’s own.
      - chc 16y ago
        Mobs don't always bring justice, but I have trouble feeling bad when they do. I mean, so far this mob has a better record than the legal system does in bringing copyright claims to a reasonable conclusion, so it's not as though there's a bulletproof alternative.
      - chesser 16y ago
        > Sure, but thousands of people phoning in to say “you’re an utter asshole” — leading to the site’s closure That isn't why they closed. Think what would have happened to them if they stayed open, from the ACTUAL non-mob-justice legal system. It's in my comment just a bit up: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1912643 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1912643
  - chesser 16y ago
    Actually the so-called "mob justice" was a HUGE FAVOR. I'll explain. How would you feel if your start-up was ripped off? Would you want HN people to rally around you, or would that be "mob justice"? And what if it turned out the same people were also ripping off, say, Microsoft and Apple and several other large corporations? If everyone had been so civil and polite, they wouldn't have felt pressured to shut down. I don't know about you, but I'll take Facebook comments and phone calls over getting served with papers from half a dozen massive legal departments any day. Lawsuits are expensive even when you're innocent. If the penalties are draconian for not even distributing but just "making available" mp3s with NO commercial intentions whatsoever, what do you think the penalties are going to look like for massive distribution of hundreds or thousands of discrete willful infringements for profit? This so-called mob justice is immeasurably nicer than what the actual legal system would have done to them.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
  - JoachimSchipper 16y ago
    She appears to be some sort of owner as well as editor. And it appears only two people actually make money from that magazine - the other may also be an owner-type.
  - cs_1 16y ago
    > Maybe "she" deserves a serious wake-up call, but "they" most certainly do not. Being a two-person operation is probably why they ripped off most if not all of their content. "Craftier Internet denizens started to research more of Cooks Source's publications, discovering that other articles could be lifted from The Food Network, Martha Stewart, NPR and even Disney." http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299928 http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299928 Not just articles, but also photos, discovered with TinEye.
    - studer 16y ago
      "Because the writer in question had a copyright on her website where the article can be found, the content of the website is under copyright law." Ouch. Surely there must be a better source than some junk written by a clueless "digital journalist" with the sole purpose of flooding search engines?
      - cs_1 16y ago
        Wade through at your leisure. http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic=23238 http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic... Same primary source regardless of what outlet covers it. NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/11/05/131091599/the-day-the-internet-threw-a-righteous-hissyfit-about-copyright-and-pie http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/11/05/131091599/the-... Economist: "A host of Facebook and other denizens have traced over 100 other articles that have appeared in the magazine to The Food Network, NPR, Martha Stewart, Sunset, and others. A Google Docs spreadsheet maintains the list." http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/11/internet_shaming http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/11/internet_sham... The list: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmTaIPHPnkSedGFhbHo1d1FIR2oxNWJLaDZLeXhEVEE&hl=en#gid=0 https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmTaIPHPnkSedGFhbHo... Over 160 entries just from recent issues that people could find copies of.
- drusenko 16y ago
  I completely lost any possible sympathy for her when she posted this to Facebook, a day or so after the story broke: ------------ Hi Folks! Well, here I am with egg on my face! I did apologise to Monica via email, but aparently it wasnt enough for her. To all of you, thank you for your interest in Cooks Source and Again, to Monica, I am sorry -- my bad! You did find a way to get your "pound of flesh..." we used to have 110 "friends," we now have 1,870... wow! Best to all, Judith
  - deltaqueue 16y ago
    For what it's worth, the person who wrote that was not the real Judith--someone created a fake Facebook account and made several posts like (and including) this one.
    - drusenko 16y ago
      Really? This page looks pretty legitimate: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cooks-Source-Magazine/196994196748 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cooks-Source-Magazine/19699419... They have postings going back to December 2009. In the wall area, if you click on "Filters" and then "Just Cooks Source Magazine", you'll see that post I mentioned, which Facebook says originates from the Cooks Source Magazine Facebook page. Maybe I'm getting confused somehow?
      - deltaqueue 16y ago
        Interesting--the Cooks Source page you linked is indeed the official group (created long before this debacle), and that appears to be a post from the group itself (so it is probably the real Judith). That being said, when this story went viral someone created a fake Judith profile and proceeded to troll everyone by posting extremely similar statements simultaneously apologizing and defending her stance. Regardless, I think we can all agree this person is clearly in the wrong industry and still has little personal accountability for her mistakes.
mitcheme 16y ago
No sympathy from me. Anyone who works as a magazine editor should realize that these things are copyrighted (NOT "copy written"; seriously, editor?) by default. The FIRST thing you do is check the article's license, and if there isn't one, get permission (NOT "contact the author" to let them know you've decided to use it; she never had that right). Monica had every right to be rude -- Cooks Source had unapologetically violated her rights. This article just makes them seem whiny and reluctant to take responsibility for their own choices. I bet if they had owned up right away and published a real apology plus a mention of paying the author for her work, things would have gone much more smoothly.
sammcd 16y ago
My favorite part: "Facebook has not responded at all; not taken these advertisers name off this bogus site -- or remove the site completely -- and takes no responsibility that someone unnamed can just create a page that can suggest that people" The entire internet is public domain, except for her site, I guess.
zdw 16y ago
"Instead of picking up one of the multitude of books sent to me and typing it, I got lazy and went to the www and "found" something." In school, that's called plagiarism, and you get thrown out for it... Why should it be so different in the real world?
- xentronium 16y ago
  Because real world is not a school. NB: Probably not in this particular case.
- pyre 16y ago
  Who says she hasn't already been 'thrown out' of the real world? Her ideas certainly don't match up with reality.
iuguy 16y ago
Hopefully she'll have learned a bit about how to interact with people on the Internet by the time she starts her next venture (if this one is going down the tubes as a result of her previous actions). Sadly that response tells me she's learned nothing from all of this and can't see beyond her own bloodied nose.
- Devilboy 16y ago
  It is indeed going down the 'tubes' http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/11/16/cooks-source-calls-it-quits http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/11/16/cooks-source-calls-it-q...
  - pyre 16y ago
    There's a part where some of the quotes from the apology letter are implied to have been given to the Gazette in a phone interview. (not necessarily intentional)
andfarm 16y ago
> But one night when working yet another 12 hour day late into the night, I was short one article... Instead of picking up one of the multitude of books sent to me and typing it, I got lazy and went to the www and "found" something. Bleary-eyed I didnt notice it was copy written and reordered some of it. I did keep the author's name on it rather than outright "stealing" it, and it was my intention to contact the author, but I simply forgot, between proofreading, deliveries, exhaustion. And I suppose the author was also "bleary-eyed" when she plagiarized all the other articles which were identified as having been taken from other cooking magazines? http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic=23238 http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic...
- istari 16y ago
  All of those magazines should pay her for cleaning up their sloppy work.
blhack 16y ago
Huh. This all feels a lot like people who ask designers or programmers to work for free in exchange for "thing that look good in your portfolio".
- cs_1 16y ago
  Minus the word "ask".
  - younata 16y ago
    don't you mean "substitute 'demand' for 'ask'?
nl 16y ago
Wow... that's one of the least gracious apologies I've ever seen. 1150 words, of which around 100 is the apology (including the choice phrase "I think I did a nice job for you") and the rest of it is excuses and blame shifting.
xentronium 16y ago
WTH, you screwed up -- get over it. Nobody in the entire internet needed that lame excuse letter.
aasarava 16y ago
The editor's response reveals a lot about her understanding (or lack thereof) of the business she's in. Normally I'm willing to overlook small typos in blog posts -- but when you are an editor, and you are writing an important response on an important issue, it's not wise to get the punctuation wrong on the very first word. (It should be "it's sad", not "its sad".) That she continues not to use apostrophes throughout the post and gets other things wrong ("I never ment to hurt"), pretty much sends the message that "I don't really know what I'm doing" and "I just don't really care." If, as an editor, she doesn't understand basic rules of punctuation, then is it any surprise that she doesn't understand copyright? If, as she claims, the magazine is going to go out of business, the real culprit is the editor's lack of knowledge about the business she's in. After all, we wouldn't feel sorry for a chef who had to close his restaurant after it was revealed that he was violating health codes. Why should we feel sorry for an editor who still doesn't understand copyright, even after having gone through this whole episode?
- dgreensp 16y ago
  Plus, if I remember correctly, the editor thought Monica should rather compensate her for editing it. She'd been in the business for decades, she said, and Monica should feel privileged. Holy crap.
  - cs_1 16y ago
    Original: http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html
- adamesque 16y ago
  Her business is to work "with small food-oriented businesses and farms to get the word out on their works/products". The vehicle is publishing, and I get the feeling she's using the magazine the same way a lot of normal people use their computers: as a means to an end. If I had to guess, I'd wager that's why she doesn't understand copyright. Her area of expertise (and I use that word with a HUGE grain of salt) is food and local business.
AgentConundrum 16y ago
Bleary-eyed I didnt notice it was copy written and reordered some of it. Copyright is the default, not the exception. Unless there's an explicit declaration that copying is OK (e.g. Creative Commons, other licenses), you should assume you can't copy it. She gets no sympathy from me. In fact, her comments just push me further from her side.
- 3pt14159 16y ago
  That is true for the US, not necessarily the rest of the world. Not disagreeing with your point, just want to help out anyone that would take away what you said as hard fact.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    No, you're right, it's only almost the entire rest of the world that works this way. Google:[berne convention].
  - mtigas 16y ago
    Under the Berne Convention http://bit.ly/cxm7gA http://bit.ly/cxm7gA , you’ve got a vast majority of the world where “created works are protected as soon as they exist.” http://www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/ipr_copyricht.html http://www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/ipr_copyricht.html Outside of Berne-recognizing countries, I think the chance of having a similar plagiarism-for-profit case is pretty slim.
  - AgentConundrum 16y ago
    The US, where Cooks Source seems to be based, is a signatory of the Berne Convention[1]. From Wikipedia: The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognize the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way as it recognises the copyright of its own nationals. For example, French copyright law applies to anything published or performed in France, regardless of where it was originally created. Additionally, The Berne Convention makes copyright automatic in countries which observe it. This image, also from Wikipedia, shows the Berne signatories in blue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berne_Convention_signatories.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berne_Convention_signatori... While my post is "not necessarily [true] for the rest of the world," it is true for an awful large portion of it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protec...
Dramatize 16y ago
Is it just me or should she have started this with the "So let me say this now: Monica I am so sorry for any harm I caused you." line? It read like: -excuse -excuse -excuse -excuse -excuse -sorry -excuse -excuse -excuse
alanh 16y ago
The first sentence is only three words long and yet contains the elementary-school-level mistake of using “its” when ”it’s” was intended. In fact, this article is full of basic mistakes even spellcheck can correct. She’s an editor.
- tjmc 16y ago
  Former editor, thankfully.
- wglb 16y ago
  Supposably.
cs_1 16y ago
It's really amazing how utterly contemptible this editor's responses have been. Rip off everyone else knowingly for months or years, then claim innocence and that it was an isolated mistake. Blame everyone else for your own actions and pretend that your apology was fake because people were mean FIRST, when actually the fake apology came first and THAT is what made them mad. Be offered a chance to make it up, denigrate the offer, then cry and lie later about not getting a chance. This newest statement is so rife with errors, I gotta say: "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" I also like how she makes it out to be about one blogger, when it turns out Cooks Source stole articles and photos from sites for The Food Network, Oprah, and Martha Stewart. They would have been sued out of existence anyway. "If my apology to Monica seemed shallow it was because I was angry about the harm she has inflicted on others on behalf of her own agenda." Pretending it's about one blogger, when in reality it was the collective actions of thousands of people that the editor pissed off. And pretending that her apology was affected by events that hadn't even happened yet! "I really wish she had given me a chance to respond to her before blasting me. She really never gave me a chance." So ripping people off is okay, but pointing this out is "blasting someone". And of course she got the chance to respond, her fake apology was included in the initial post and was what pissed everyone off. "The Web Is Public Domain", the headline that GOT all the attention, is from her response, the one she claims she never got the chance to make. "But one night when working yet another 12 hour day late into the night, I was short one article..." Anyone can make a mistake, but the research shows they ripped off most if not all of their material, on a constant basis. "Bleary-eyed I didnt notice it was copy written and reordered some of it." Except that any editor knows that EVERYTHING is automatically copyrighted. Oh yeah, and also they ripped off plenty of stuff from big commercial sites which was obviously copyrighted and said so explicitly. And then she was informed directly by the author that it was copyrighted, so that there was no confusion, to which the editor responded: "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!" [...] "We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me!" And then... "To one writer in particular, Monica Gaudio, I wish you had given me a chance." She DID give the editor a chance. She just asked for a donation to the Columbia School of Journalism amounting to 10 cents per word. So at the end, when you're finally about to face the music for a MULTITUDE of misdeeds, try to distract and cover for them all by copping to a single incident with a single person and then claim it was an accident. Nothing is ever your fault! It's difficult to comprehend this level of depravity.
ghurlman 16y ago
I've learned two things in life about people like this editor: 1. I will never understand how their brain puts them in the right for every situation they've ever been in 2. No amount of arguing or facts will get in the way of #1
- tjmc 16y ago
  Indeed, and now that she's got some free time perhaps she can help Conrad Black with his memoirs.
marklabedz 16y ago
Put down the shovel.
bigiain 16y ago
(Working on the assumption that the author is being sincere here) This displays such a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright that it initially shocked me. But in retrospect I suspect this attitude is probably very widely shared, particularly amongst younger people who've grown up with Napster and filesharing and bit torrent. While most of us don't republish other people's copyrighted work, I'm sure very few of us haven't got _some_ "illegally copied" copyrighted material somewhere on a hard drive. And from one point of view, what she did is not really any different to all those YouTube videos with unauthorized music tracks backing them - I'm not saying that's a _correct_ interpretation, but I can easily understand why some people - like she's doing here - think they've got some right to do that. I see this as a fundamental, and probably generational change in the way the public thinks about copyright, and it'll be fascinating to see how the legal system "catches up" with public expectations. It could well be that when people like her get into positions where they're making the decisions about whether to extend Disney's Mickey Mouse copyrights even further, they'll be sitting there saying "WTF?", and perhaps_ bringing some sanity back to copyright laws. I hope some artists and creators survive long enough to see that day...
- bigiain 16y ago
  Actually, pondering this a bit further, I wonder if my idea of this being a "generational change" is wrong. I wonder how people in the 1930s or 1940s views their obligations to artists/composers/filmmakers/writers and those people's rights to control their published work? It may be the "Disney era copyrights" are just a temporary anomaly in "the way the world works", in a similar way to the ~30 year "profitable album era" was for the music industry...
  - skore 16y ago
    There sure is a disconnect going on between how big corporations utilize copyright to their advantage and how regular folks deal with it, rather hamfistedly, as in this case. I disagree with your earlier statement that this might be a new way in which the public "thinks about copyright", it is rather the new way in which it is /misunderstood/. So I'd say we shouldn't confuse the mounting ignorance in the general populace (which is, mostly, attributable to just the sheer amount of stuff that is out there - logic usually fails when something gets too big to follow) with an actual shift in consciousness. There is a need to rethink a lot of this, but that shouldn't be about "how do we break the old thing", but about "how do we create a new thing" - and that is where efforts like CC come into play. So I don't really disagree that this is a widespread phenomenon, I'm just saying that it will not be where the change comes from in the future. That is, of course, unless reality is particularly cruel to us.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
danilocampos 16y ago
My favorite part: "I didnt notice it was copy written" Assuming she means "copyrighted," damn. This individual is shockingly ignorant about the business of writing. The author of any work automatically receives copyright to that work (unless it's a work for hire, etc). It's that simple. I want to believe no one can be that obtuse, and this line is just one more of the weak post-rationalizations she's offering for obvious bad behavior.
ndl 16y ago
"If my apology to Monica seemed shallow it was because I was angry about the harm she has inflicted on others on behalf of her own agenda." This is neither an a letter of apology nor an admission of wrongdoing, it's a statement of blame. "Thank you to all our readers, thanks to all our advertisers and writers... and to everyone who has been supportive and who has been a part of Cooks Source. To one writer in particular, Monica Gaudio, I wish you had given me a chance." The "one writer in particular" directly after referring to the magazine's writers almost implies that she thinks Monica is one of their writers. I wonder if she thinks that the entire Internet are her writers? I don't think that violating copyright is incurring her the wrath of the Internet. Plenty of people distribute content that isn't theirs, and usually they get sympathy when the big bad RIAA comes in. It's the fact that every time she gets called out on a mistake, she insults the victim. You can get away with being wrong or with being nasty, but not both.
16s 16y ago
This is beyond ridiculous... the epitome of stupidity.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
erikano 16y ago
[...] a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 16 Nov 2010 20:34:40 GMT. (in the event that the editor should decide to take down or considerably alter the statement) [1]. [1]: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VlsfWx1uFBQJ:www.cookssource.com/+site:cookssource.com&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VlsfWx1...
trustfundbaby 16y ago
In a way, I see her twisted logic and I empathize. I'm not a fan of the mob mentality that drove the harassment she received. Its amazing what people will do once they're convinced they're right
senorprogrammer 16y ago
She's effectively written a long-winded excuse in the guide of an apology while making thinly-veiled attempts to blame the original author for her ensuing misfortune. At the same time she deftly manages to not mention the numerous other counts of plagiarism that were discovered. I'm sure she feels extremely sorry for herself right now but for all intents and purposes she is simply a thief.
- pyre 16y ago
  She's not a thief, but she is a fraud. (i.e. copyright violate != theft)
  - senorprogrammer 16y ago
    Fair point. Agreed.
latch 16y ago
I'm going to have to go against the prevailing view and say that you guys are being way too harsh. She messed up. She apologized. Maybe it wan't sincere enough for you, fine. But in any case, what she did is less horrible than what has since been done to her. I have no doubt that "harass" is the right word, no doubt that her advertisers are being contacted, her voice mail stuffed, and her mailbox filled. Based on what? How's this different than suing companies for silly shit? Its only different because you're the judge. An armchair judge. This should have been handled privately. Like adults. This is drama..a soap opera...stuff of tabloid. Someone has wronged me and I'll unleash the internet on them. Put your pitchforks away.
- DanielStraight 16y ago
  Her problem isn't that she messed up. Her problem is that she doesn't understand her own business. If she had a long history of honest publishing and the story was that she had two browser windows open, one with a Creative Commons licensed article and one with an unlicensed article, and simply copied from the wrong window, that would be messing up. Not even knowing that copyright is the default state of a written work is not messing up. It's utter ignorance of a fundamental rule in the business of publishing. You can't make something like that go away. No amount of apology is going to change the fact that you don't have the requisite knowledge to be in the publishing business. The only correct response is to go back to the drawing board and learn your shit before you come back to work.
- krschultz 16y ago
  Copyright is not "silly shit" to a bunch of programmers (especially when many of them work on open source). Programmers make things that are copyrighted. A story about an individual having their work stolen by another invokes the same response among programmers as a story about a violent robbery would invoke in a storm owner. It gets personal. Right or wrong that explains the emotion behind the mob. (Why this doesn't extend to violating copyright on music, movies, and games is beyond me.)
ck2 16y ago
Instead of picking up one of the multitude of books sent to me and typing it, I got lazy and went to the www and "found" something. Well there you go, and they didn't need to write the 2000 other words on that page which were all excuses - no one forced them to be a publisher. They copy and pasted and planned on begging for forgiveness later being easier than asking permission. Or maybe not even being noticed at all. Google even has a public-domain/creative-commons search option which they didn't even bother to use.
- skore 16y ago
  An interesting point - after all, if this was really about creating a good magazine and not having enough time to write the content, going with public or CC licensed content would actually make a lot of sense. So the way she conducted her business was actually not THAT far off - she just happened to be completely ignorant about there being a way that she could avoid the obvious legal issues.
  - owkaye 16y ago
    "she just happened to be completely ignorant about there being a way that she could avoid the obvious legal issues" I think she has known all along that she's been running her business illegally by stealing other people's work without permission, and because she was never confronted about it until now she became emboldened to continue to expand her illegal practices. I think she's acting ignorant, and it does not feel genuine to me at all. Anyone who claims to have been employed as an editor for 3 decades certainly knows what is legal and illegal. She just figured that she could get away with it -- and when confronted she decided that "the best defense is a strong offense" so she attacked the author verbally and tried to belittle her -- thinking perhaps that the author would simply back away and 'disappear' rather than assert her rights.
subpixel 16y ago
Reading this letter, all I can think is: this woman is wasting her silly recrimination and entertaining incompetence on some sort of regional print magazine, when she's so obviously tailor made for reality TV!
nathanielksmith 16y ago
I am curious to hear the opinions of some of the people in this comment thread regarding the downloading of copyrighted music, torrenting copyrighted films, downloading copyrighted books, or otherwise illegally using copyrighted content. I'm not defending this woman as she did do something wrong. However, I think it's distressing that people are celebrating her "defeat," especially as (I would guess) most of her critics are avid supporters of pirated content. Isn't there some statistic about how every American violates some copyright law just about every day? Cooks Source was a small, free, regional publication--the kind you ignore at the dentist's. This doesn't excuse Cooks Source and doesn't mean that Monica shouldn't have taken issue like she did. But in the end, I just don't see a david vs. goliath story: I just see a bunch of people ganging up on one person.
- skore 16y ago
  No. There is a difference between pirating for personal use or even sharing with others and re-publishing content for profit. Copyright survives precisely because it is not enforced 100% - if it was followed by the letter, everybody would very soon see that it's not a good idea, crippling culture and turning the participation in public discourse on its head. This is also why there are rules like Fair Use - to acknowledge that there is an area where copyright is just not producing any net worth for society. That said, you cannot then go on and follow that because it is rarely followed to the letter by regular people, the whole system isn't working. I see the recent "liberal" approach to cultural content as a plain opposite and equal reaction to the decades of capitalizing on culture. The media industry had their way for a good while and very nearly fully commercialized it (which is why, even today, you see people arguing that artists wouldn't produce art if they weren't paid for it) and now that the sole purpose of their existence (distribution of cultural content) is done better, cheaper and more efficient by regular people do they circle around themselves eating their own young. I see the Cooks Source incident as a very weird example of a regular person behaving as entitled as the big media corporations do (or compare, for instance, the various Timbaland "situations" we've had over the years) - she is not in a position where she can act like that, but others clearly CAN. These are all symptoms of a change that is clearly happening, but the outcome will not consist of those symptoms. Or at least I hope that it does not.
delackner 16y ago
Woe to the society that believes being punished is the only wrong, and that guilt is something to be accused of only, not something to be ashamed of.
markbao 16y ago
I'm sad that this meant the end of someone doing what they love to do and something they put in work for, for years. But my sympathy ends there.
jhamburger 16y ago
I might have some sympathy if I bought her premise that this ugliness could have been avoided if Monica simply waited for her to deal with the issue quietly. Monica got a written and printed apology, a donation to columbia, and a virtual assurance that this publication will no longer violate copyright. There's no way she would have received that level of satisfaction without dealing with it the way she did.
stcredzero 16y ago
From Techcrunch: If we let anonymous mobs have this much power, the world — the real, flesh-and-blood human one, not the virtual one of Tweets, blog posts, comments and LiveJournal feeds– is going to get worse, not better. http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/16/congrats-self-righteous-internet-mob-you-killed-a-magazine/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/16/congrats-self-righteous-int... Already happened!
- zbyszek 16y ago
  I imagine the Iranian government might express similar sentiments about anonymous internet mobs. The power they wield might be used to all sorts of ends, some of which we might admire, and some which we might find distasteful. Would a world where we forbid the anonymous mobs from having that much power be so much better?
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    I've never advocated banning anonymous mobs. However, I like pointing out when they do bad things. I find too many people seem to worship the activity of internet mobs as though they're inherently good, when they're no more inherently anything than any other sort of mob.
SimonPStevens 16y ago
While I have no sympathy for this woman, something in her story does concern me. "we have had so much hate email (over 400 pieces) , phone calls and regular mail." She violated some copyright. That is an issue between her and the copyright holder. I feel slightly ashamed to be part of a community (Not HN specifically, but the more global software community) that responds with hate mail and abuse.
- skore 16y ago
  As soon as something is "made into a facebook group", all bets are off, I suppose. This kind of abuse is rarely (if ever) justified, so I agree with you, but I would also add that it's her making this statement and I have kind of stopped trusting that voice.
mynameishere 16y ago
Not to defend her, but when your typical blog author finds out that something he wrote got published, his response is one of pleasure. This "editor" is wrong on all counts, but from her perspective, the response of the blogger is highly unusual.
karlzt 16y ago
instead of cookssource.com I get www.intuit.com.
- erikano 16y ago
  See googles cached version (I've posted it ITT).

165 points by callmeed 16y ago

See: http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1868736 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1868736

studer 16y ago
Also: http://illadore.livejournal.com/32647.html http://illadore.livejournal.com/32647.html

yalurker 16y ago

Wow, reading this didn't give me any sympathy for her at all. I'm reminded of the episode of South Park where Cartman feels bad only about getting punished, no actual guilt or remorse for his crime, and fails to understand how the other kids can feel bad in any way other than because of punishment. She steals someone else's work, gets caught and sends an arrogant, rude email with absurd claims (web is public domain) and then when she is hit with the internet backlash, she writes a post that it's not her fault because she was overworked and throws in an insincere apology where she still clearly doesn't believe she did anything wrong ("I think I did a nice job for you"). The original article didn't irk me nearly as much as her rebuttal. Quite frankly, if this really does put them out of business, they deserve it.

landhar 16y ago
"The original article didn't irk me nearly as much as her rebuttal. Quite frankly, if this really does put them out of business, they deserve it." That's exactly what I thought upon reading this. And the reference to South Park is gold :-)
adamesque 16y ago
If that list of plagiarized articles is accurate, she certainly seemed to have it coming, but you'll have to forgive me if I can't feel awesome about the victory of asymmetrical internet mob justice over a small-time regional magazine. God forbid they ever smell blood in the water you're swimming in.
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  Phoning to say "you're an utter asshole", while not a nice thing to do, is still not exactly the same as lynching someone. Tone down the hyperbole a bit, please.
  - mtigas 16y ago
    Sure, but thousands of people phoning in to say “you’re an utter asshole” — leading to the site’s closure — isn’t simply “not a nice thing to do,” though. They got what they deserved, but if it ain’t “mob justice,” I don’t know what else to call it. The Internet, en masse, certainly has a pulse and life of it’s own.
    - chc 16y ago
      Mobs don't always bring justice, but I have trouble feeling bad when they do. I mean, so far this mob has a better record than the legal system does in bringing copyright claims to a reasonable conclusion, so it's not as though there's a bulletproof alternative.
    - chesser 16y ago
      > Sure, but thousands of people phoning in to say “you’re an utter asshole” — leading to the site’s closure That isn't why they closed. Think what would have happened to them if they stayed open, from the ACTUAL non-mob-justice legal system. It's in my comment just a bit up: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1912643 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1912643
- chesser 16y ago
  Actually the so-called "mob justice" was a HUGE FAVOR. I'll explain. How would you feel if your start-up was ripped off? Would you want HN people to rally around you, or would that be "mob justice"? And what if it turned out the same people were also ripping off, say, Microsoft and Apple and several other large corporations? If everyone had been so civil and polite, they wouldn't have felt pressured to shut down. I don't know about you, but I'll take Facebook comments and phone calls over getting served with papers from half a dozen massive legal departments any day. Lawsuits are expensive even when you're innocent. If the penalties are draconian for not even distributing but just "making available" mp3s with NO commercial intentions whatsoever, what do you think the penalties are going to look like for massive distribution of hundreds or thousands of discrete willful infringements for profit? This so-called mob justice is immeasurably nicer than what the actual legal system would have done to them.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- JoachimSchipper 16y ago
  She appears to be some sort of owner as well as editor. And it appears only two people actually make money from that magazine - the other may also be an owner-type.
- cs_1 16y ago
  > Maybe "she" deserves a serious wake-up call, but "they" most certainly do not. Being a two-person operation is probably why they ripped off most if not all of their content. "Craftier Internet denizens started to research more of Cooks Source's publications, discovering that other articles could be lifted from The Food Network, Martha Stewart, NPR and even Disney." http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299928 http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299928 Not just articles, but also photos, discovered with TinEye.
  - studer 16y ago
    "Because the writer in question had a copyright on her website where the article can be found, the content of the website is under copyright law." Ouch. Surely there must be a better source than some junk written by a clueless "digital journalist" with the sole purpose of flooding search engines?
    - cs_1 16y ago
      Wade through at your leisure. http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic=23238 http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic... Same primary source regardless of what outlet covers it. NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/11/05/131091599/the-day-the-internet-threw-a-righteous-hissyfit-about-copyright-and-pie http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/11/05/131091599/the-... Economist: "A host of Facebook and other denizens have traced over 100 other articles that have appeared in the magazine to The Food Network, NPR, Martha Stewart, Sunset, and others. A Google Docs spreadsheet maintains the list." http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/11/internet_shaming http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/11/internet_sham... The list: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmTaIPHPnkSedGFhbHo1d1FIR2oxNWJLaDZLeXhEVEE&hl=en#gid=0 https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmTaIPHPnkSedGFhbHo... Over 160 entries just from recent issues that people could find copies of.
drusenko 16y ago
I completely lost any possible sympathy for her when she posted this to Facebook, a day or so after the story broke: ------------ Hi Folks! Well, here I am with egg on my face! I did apologise to Monica via email, but aparently it wasnt enough for her. To all of you, thank you for your interest in Cooks Source and Again, to Monica, I am sorry -- my bad! You did find a way to get your "pound of flesh..." we used to have 110 "friends," we now have 1,870... wow! Best to all, Judith
- deltaqueue 16y ago
  For what it's worth, the person who wrote that was not the real Judith--someone created a fake Facebook account and made several posts like (and including) this one.
  - drusenko 16y ago
    Really? This page looks pretty legitimate: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cooks-Source-Magazine/196994196748 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cooks-Source-Magazine/19699419... They have postings going back to December 2009. In the wall area, if you click on "Filters" and then "Just Cooks Source Magazine", you'll see that post I mentioned, which Facebook says originates from the Cooks Source Magazine Facebook page. Maybe I'm getting confused somehow?
    - deltaqueue 16y ago
      Interesting--the Cooks Source page you linked is indeed the official group (created long before this debacle), and that appears to be a post from the group itself (so it is probably the real Judith). That being said, when this story went viral someone created a fake Judith profile and proceeded to troll everyone by posting extremely similar statements simultaneously apologizing and defending her stance. Regardless, I think we can all agree this person is clearly in the wrong industry and still has little personal accountability for her mistakes.

mitcheme 16y ago

No sympathy from me. Anyone who works as a magazine editor should realize that these things are copyrighted (NOT "copy written"; seriously, editor?) by default. The FIRST thing you do is check the article's license, and if there isn't one, get permission (NOT "contact the author" to let them know you've decided to use it; she never had that right). Monica had every right to be rude -- Cooks Source had unapologetically violated her rights. This article just makes them seem whiny and reluctant to take responsibility for their own choices. I bet if they had owned up right away and published a real apology plus a mention of paying the author for her work, things would have gone much more smoothly.

sammcd 16y ago

My favorite part: "Facebook has not responded at all; not taken these advertisers name off this bogus site -- or remove the site completely -- and takes no responsibility that someone unnamed can just create a page that can suggest that people" The entire internet is public domain, except for her site, I guess.

zdw 16y ago

"Instead of picking up one of the multitude of books sent to me and typing it, I got lazy and went to the www and "found" something." In school, that's called plagiarism, and you get thrown out for it... Why should it be so different in the real world?

xentronium 16y ago
Because real world is not a school. NB: Probably not in this particular case.
pyre 16y ago
Who says she hasn't already been 'thrown out' of the real world? Her ideas certainly don't match up with reality.

iuguy 16y ago

Hopefully she'll have learned a bit about how to interact with people on the Internet by the time she starts her next venture (if this one is going down the tubes as a result of her previous actions). Sadly that response tells me she's learned nothing from all of this and can't see beyond her own bloodied nose.

Devilboy 16y ago
It is indeed going down the 'tubes' http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/11/16/cooks-source-calls-it-quits http://www.gazettenet.com/2010/11/16/cooks-source-calls-it-q...
- pyre 16y ago
  There's a part where some of the quotes from the apology letter are implied to have been given to the Gazette in a phone interview. (not necessarily intentional)

andfarm 16y ago

> But one night when working yet another 12 hour day late into the night, I was short one article... Instead of picking up one of the multitude of books sent to me and typing it, I got lazy and went to the www and "found" something. Bleary-eyed I didnt notice it was copy written and reordered some of it. I did keep the author's name on it rather than outright "stealing" it, and it was my intention to contact the author, but I simply forgot, between proofreading, deliveries, exhaustion. And I suppose the author was also "bleary-eyed" when she plagiarized all the other articles which were identified as having been taken from other cooking magazines? http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic=23238 http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic...

istari 16y ago
All of those magazines should pay her for cleaning up their sloppy work.

blhack 16y ago

Huh. This all feels a lot like people who ask designers or programmers to work for free in exchange for "thing that look good in your portfolio".

cs_1 16y ago
Minus the word "ask".
- younata 16y ago
  don't you mean "substitute 'demand' for 'ask'?

nl 16y ago

Wow... that's one of the least gracious apologies I've ever seen. 1150 words, of which around 100 is the apology (including the choice phrase "I think I did a nice job for you") and the rest of it is excuses and blame shifting.

xentronium 16y ago

WTH, you screwed up -- get over it. Nobody in the entire internet needed that lame excuse letter.

aasarava 16y ago

The editor's response reveals a lot about her understanding (or lack thereof) of the business she's in. Normally I'm willing to overlook small typos in blog posts -- but when you are an editor, and you are writing an important response on an important issue, it's not wise to get the punctuation wrong on the very first word. (It should be "it's sad", not "its sad".) That she continues not to use apostrophes throughout the post and gets other things wrong ("I never ment to hurt"), pretty much sends the message that "I don't really know what I'm doing" and "I just don't really care." If, as an editor, she doesn't understand basic rules of punctuation, then is it any surprise that she doesn't understand copyright? If, as she claims, the magazine is going to go out of business, the real culprit is the editor's lack of knowledge about the business she's in. After all, we wouldn't feel sorry for a chef who had to close his restaurant after it was revealed that he was violating health codes. Why should we feel sorry for an editor who still doesn't understand copyright, even after having gone through this whole episode?

dgreensp 16y ago
Plus, if I remember correctly, the editor thought Monica should rather compensate her for editing it. She'd been in the business for decades, she said, and Monica should feel privileged. Holy crap.
- cs_1 16y ago
  Original: http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html http://illadore.livejournal.com/30674.html
adamesque 16y ago
Her business is to work "with small food-oriented businesses and farms to get the word out on their works/products". The vehicle is publishing, and I get the feeling she's using the magazine the same way a lot of normal people use their computers: as a means to an end. If I had to guess, I'd wager that's why she doesn't understand copyright. Her area of expertise (and I use that word with a HUGE grain of salt) is food and local business.

AgentConundrum 16y ago

Bleary-eyed I didnt notice it was copy written and reordered some of it. Copyright is the default, not the exception. Unless there's an explicit declaration that copying is OK (e.g. Creative Commons, other licenses), you should assume you can't copy it. She gets no sympathy from me. In fact, her comments just push me further from her side.

3pt14159 16y ago
That is true for the US, not necessarily the rest of the world. Not disagreeing with your point, just want to help out anyone that would take away what you said as hard fact.
- tptacek 16y ago
  No, you're right, it's only almost the entire rest of the world that works this way. Google:[berne convention].
- mtigas 16y ago
  Under the Berne Convention http://bit.ly/cxm7gA http://bit.ly/cxm7gA , you’ve got a vast majority of the world where “created works are protected as soon as they exist.” http://www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/ipr_copyricht.html http://www.buyusa.gov/europeanunion/ipr_copyricht.html Outside of Berne-recognizing countries, I think the chance of having a similar plagiarism-for-profit case is pretty slim.
- AgentConundrum 16y ago
  The US, where Cooks Source seems to be based, is a signatory of the Berne Convention[1]. From Wikipedia: The Berne Convention requires its signatories to recognize the copyright of works of authors from other signatory countries (known as members of the Berne Union) in the same way as it recognises the copyright of its own nationals. For example, French copyright law applies to anything published or performed in France, regardless of where it was originally created. Additionally, The Berne Convention makes copyright automatic in countries which observe it. This image, also from Wikipedia, shows the Berne signatories in blue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berne_Convention_signatories.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Berne_Convention_signatori... While my post is "not necessarily [true] for the rest of the world," it is true for an awful large portion of it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protec...

Dramatize 16y ago

Is it just me or should she have started this with the "So let me say this now: Monica I am so sorry for any harm I caused you." line? It read like: -excuse -excuse -excuse -excuse -excuse -sorry -excuse -excuse -excuse

alanh 16y ago

The first sentence is only three words long and yet contains the elementary-school-level mistake of using “its” when ”it’s” was intended. In fact, this article is full of basic mistakes even spellcheck can correct. She’s an editor.

tjmc 16y ago
Former editor, thankfully.
wglb 16y ago
Supposably.

cs_1 16y ago

It's really amazing how utterly contemptible this editor's responses have been. Rip off everyone else knowingly for months or years, then claim innocence and that it was an isolated mistake. Blame everyone else for your own actions and pretend that your apology was fake because people were mean FIRST, when actually the fake apology came first and THAT is what made them mad. Be offered a chance to make it up, denigrate the offer, then cry and lie later about not getting a chance. This newest statement is so rife with errors, I gotta say: "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" I also like how she makes it out to be about one blogger, when it turns out Cooks Source stole articles and photos from sites for The Food Network, Oprah, and Martha Stewart. They would have been sued out of existence anyway. "If my apology to Monica seemed shallow it was because I was angry about the harm she has inflicted on others on behalf of her own agenda." Pretending it's about one blogger, when in reality it was the collective actions of thousands of people that the editor pissed off. And pretending that her apology was affected by events that hadn't even happened yet! "I really wish she had given me a chance to respond to her before blasting me. She really never gave me a chance." So ripping people off is okay, but pointing this out is "blasting someone". And of course she got the chance to respond, her fake apology was included in the initial post and was what pissed everyone off. "The Web Is Public Domain", the headline that GOT all the attention, is from her response, the one she claims she never got the chance to make. "But one night when working yet another 12 hour day late into the night, I was short one article..." Anyone can make a mistake, but the research shows they ripped off most if not all of their material, on a constant basis. "Bleary-eyed I didnt notice it was copy written and reordered some of it." Except that any editor knows that EVERYTHING is automatically copyrighted. Oh yeah, and also they ripped off plenty of stuff from big commercial sites which was obviously copyrighted and said so explicitly. And then she was informed directly by the author that it was copyrighted, so that there was no confusion, to which the editor responded: "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!" [...] "We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me!" And then... "To one writer in particular, Monica Gaudio, I wish you had given me a chance." She DID give the editor a chance. She just asked for a donation to the Columbia School of Journalism amounting to 10 cents per word. So at the end, when you're finally about to face the music for a MULTITUDE of misdeeds, try to distract and cover for them all by copping to a single incident with a single person and then claim it was an accident. Nothing is ever your fault! It's difficult to comprehend this level of depravity.

ghurlman 16y ago

I've learned two things in life about people like this editor: 1. I will never understand how their brain puts them in the right for every situation they've ever been in 2. No amount of arguing or facts will get in the way of #1

tjmc 16y ago
Indeed, and now that she's got some free time perhaps she can help Conrad Black with his memoirs.

marklabedz 16y ago

Put down the shovel.

bigiain 16y ago

(Working on the assumption that the author is being sincere here) This displays such a fundamental misunderstanding of copyright that it initially shocked me. But in retrospect I suspect this attitude is probably very widely shared, particularly amongst younger people who've grown up with Napster and filesharing and bit torrent. While most of us don't republish other people's copyrighted work, I'm sure very few of us haven't got _some_ "illegally copied" copyrighted material somewhere on a hard drive. And from one point of view, what she did is not really any different to all those YouTube videos with unauthorized music tracks backing them - I'm not saying that's a _correct_ interpretation, but I can easily understand why some people - like she's doing here - think they've got some right to do that. I see this as a fundamental, and probably generational change in the way the public thinks about copyright, and it'll be fascinating to see how the legal system "catches up" with public expectations. It could well be that when people like her get into positions where they're making the decisions about whether to extend Disney's Mickey Mouse copyrights even further, they'll be sitting there saying "WTF?", and perhaps_ bringing some sanity back to copyright laws. I hope some artists and creators survive long enough to see that day...

bigiain 16y ago
Actually, pondering this a bit further, I wonder if my idea of this being a "generational change" is wrong. I wonder how people in the 1930s or 1940s views their obligations to artists/composers/filmmakers/writers and those people's rights to control their published work? It may be the "Disney era copyrights" are just a temporary anomaly in "the way the world works", in a similar way to the ~30 year "profitable album era" was for the music industry...
- skore 16y ago
  There sure is a disconnect going on between how big corporations utilize copyright to their advantage and how regular folks deal with it, rather hamfistedly, as in this case. I disagree with your earlier statement that this might be a new way in which the public "thinks about copyright", it is rather the new way in which it is /misunderstood/. So I'd say we shouldn't confuse the mounting ignorance in the general populace (which is, mostly, attributable to just the sheer amount of stuff that is out there - logic usually fails when something gets too big to follow) with an actual shift in consciousness. There is a need to rethink a lot of this, but that shouldn't be about "how do we break the old thing", but about "how do we create a new thing" - and that is where efforts like CC come into play. So I don't really disagree that this is a widespread phenomenon, I'm just saying that it will not be where the change comes from in the future. That is, of course, unless reality is particularly cruel to us.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

danilocampos 16y ago

My favorite part: "I didnt notice it was copy written" Assuming she means "copyrighted," damn. This individual is shockingly ignorant about the business of writing. The author of any work automatically receives copyright to that work (unless it's a work for hire, etc). It's that simple. I want to believe no one can be that obtuse, and this line is just one more of the weak post-rationalizations she's offering for obvious bad behavior.

ndl 16y ago

"If my apology to Monica seemed shallow it was because I was angry about the harm she has inflicted on others on behalf of her own agenda." This is neither an a letter of apology nor an admission of wrongdoing, it's a statement of blame. "Thank you to all our readers, thanks to all our advertisers and writers... and to everyone who has been supportive and who has been a part of Cooks Source. To one writer in particular, Monica Gaudio, I wish you had given me a chance." The "one writer in particular" directly after referring to the magazine's writers almost implies that she thinks Monica is one of their writers. I wonder if she thinks that the entire Internet are her writers? I don't think that violating copyright is incurring her the wrath of the Internet. Plenty of people distribute content that isn't theirs, and usually they get sympathy when the big bad RIAA comes in. It's the fact that every time she gets called out on a mistake, she insults the victim. You can get away with being wrong or with being nasty, but not both.

16s 16y ago

This is beyond ridiculous... the epitome of stupidity.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

erikano 16y ago

[...] a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 16 Nov 2010 20:34:40 GMT. (in the event that the editor should decide to take down or considerably alter the statement) [1]. [1]: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VlsfWx1uFBQJ:www.cookssource.com/+site:cookssource.com&strip=1 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:VlsfWx1...

trustfundbaby 16y ago

In a way, I see her twisted logic and I empathize. I'm not a fan of the mob mentality that drove the harassment she received. Its amazing what people will do once they're convinced they're right

senorprogrammer 16y ago

She's effectively written a long-winded excuse in the guide of an apology while making thinly-veiled attempts to blame the original author for her ensuing misfortune. At the same time she deftly manages to not mention the numerous other counts of plagiarism that were discovered. I'm sure she feels extremely sorry for herself right now but for all intents and purposes she is simply a thief.

pyre 16y ago
She's not a thief, but she is a fraud. (i.e. copyright violate != theft)
- senorprogrammer 16y ago
  Fair point. Agreed.

latch 16y ago

I'm going to have to go against the prevailing view and say that you guys are being way too harsh. She messed up. She apologized. Maybe it wan't sincere enough for you, fine. But in any case, what she did is less horrible than what has since been done to her. I have no doubt that "harass" is the right word, no doubt that her advertisers are being contacted, her voice mail stuffed, and her mailbox filled. Based on what? How's this different than suing companies for silly shit? Its only different because you're the judge. An armchair judge. This should have been handled privately. Like adults. This is drama..a soap opera...stuff of tabloid. Someone has wronged me and I'll unleash the internet on them. Put your pitchforks away.

DanielStraight 16y ago
Her problem isn't that she messed up. Her problem is that she doesn't understand her own business. If she had a long history of honest publishing and the story was that she had two browser windows open, one with a Creative Commons licensed article and one with an unlicensed article, and simply copied from the wrong window, that would be messing up. Not even knowing that copyright is the default state of a written work is not messing up. It's utter ignorance of a fundamental rule in the business of publishing. You can't make something like that go away. No amount of apology is going to change the fact that you don't have the requisite knowledge to be in the publishing business. The only correct response is to go back to the drawing board and learn your shit before you come back to work.
krschultz 16y ago
Copyright is not "silly shit" to a bunch of programmers (especially when many of them work on open source). Programmers make things that are copyrighted. A story about an individual having their work stolen by another invokes the same response among programmers as a story about a violent robbery would invoke in a storm owner. It gets personal. Right or wrong that explains the emotion behind the mob. (Why this doesn't extend to violating copyright on music, movies, and games is beyond me.)

ck2 16y ago

Instead of picking up one of the multitude of books sent to me and typing it, I got lazy and went to the www and "found" something. Well there you go, and they didn't need to write the 2000 other words on that page which were all excuses - no one forced them to be a publisher. They copy and pasted and planned on begging for forgiveness later being easier than asking permission. Or maybe not even being noticed at all. Google even has a public-domain/creative-commons search option which they didn't even bother to use.

skore 16y ago
An interesting point - after all, if this was really about creating a good magazine and not having enough time to write the content, going with public or CC licensed content would actually make a lot of sense. So the way she conducted her business was actually not THAT far off - she just happened to be completely ignorant about there being a way that she could avoid the obvious legal issues.
- owkaye 16y ago
  "she just happened to be completely ignorant about there being a way that she could avoid the obvious legal issues" I think she has known all along that she's been running her business illegally by stealing other people's work without permission, and because she was never confronted about it until now she became emboldened to continue to expand her illegal practices. I think she's acting ignorant, and it does not feel genuine to me at all. Anyone who claims to have been employed as an editor for 3 decades certainly knows what is legal and illegal. She just figured that she could get away with it -- and when confronted she decided that "the best defense is a strong offense" so she attacked the author verbally and tried to belittle her -- thinking perhaps that the author would simply back away and 'disappear' rather than assert her rights.

subpixel 16y ago

Reading this letter, all I can think is: this woman is wasting her silly recrimination and entertaining incompetence on some sort of regional print magazine, when she's so obviously tailor made for reality TV!

nathanielksmith 16y ago

I am curious to hear the opinions of some of the people in this comment thread regarding the downloading of copyrighted music, torrenting copyrighted films, downloading copyrighted books, or otherwise illegally using copyrighted content. I'm not defending this woman as she did do something wrong. However, I think it's distressing that people are celebrating her "defeat," especially as (I would guess) most of her critics are avid supporters of pirated content. Isn't there some statistic about how every American violates some copyright law just about every day? Cooks Source was a small, free, regional publication--the kind you ignore at the dentist's. This doesn't excuse Cooks Source and doesn't mean that Monica shouldn't have taken issue like she did. But in the end, I just don't see a david vs. goliath story: I just see a bunch of people ganging up on one person.

skore 16y ago
No. There is a difference between pirating for personal use or even sharing with others and re-publishing content for profit. Copyright survives precisely because it is not enforced 100% - if it was followed by the letter, everybody would very soon see that it's not a good idea, crippling culture and turning the participation in public discourse on its head. This is also why there are rules like Fair Use - to acknowledge that there is an area where copyright is just not producing any net worth for society. That said, you cannot then go on and follow that because it is rarely followed to the letter by regular people, the whole system isn't working. I see the recent "liberal" approach to cultural content as a plain opposite and equal reaction to the decades of capitalizing on culture. The media industry had their way for a good while and very nearly fully commercialized it (which is why, even today, you see people arguing that artists wouldn't produce art if they weren't paid for it) and now that the sole purpose of their existence (distribution of cultural content) is done better, cheaper and more efficient by regular people do they circle around themselves eating their own young. I see the Cooks Source incident as a very weird example of a regular person behaving as entitled as the big media corporations do (or compare, for instance, the various Timbaland "situations" we've had over the years) - she is not in a position where she can act like that, but others clearly CAN. These are all symptoms of a change that is clearly happening, but the outcome will not consist of those symptoms. Or at least I hope that it does not.

delackner 16y ago

Woe to the society that believes being punished is the only wrong, and that guilt is something to be accused of only, not something to be ashamed of.

markbao 16y ago

I'm sad that this meant the end of someone doing what they love to do and something they put in work for, for years. But my sympathy ends there.

jhamburger 16y ago

I might have some sympathy if I bought her premise that this ugliness could have been avoided if Monica simply waited for her to deal with the issue quietly. Monica got a written and printed apology, a donation to columbia, and a virtual assurance that this publication will no longer violate copyright. There's no way she would have received that level of satisfaction without dealing with it the way she did.

stcredzero 16y ago

From Techcrunch: If we let anonymous mobs have this much power, the world — the real, flesh-and-blood human one, not the virtual one of Tweets, blog posts, comments and LiveJournal feeds– is going to get worse, not better. http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/16/congrats-self-righteous-internet-mob-you-killed-a-magazine/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/16/congrats-self-righteous-int... Already happened!

zbyszek 16y ago
I imagine the Iranian government might express similar sentiments about anonymous internet mobs. The power they wield might be used to all sorts of ends, some of which we might admire, and some which we might find distasteful. Would a world where we forbid the anonymous mobs from having that much power be so much better?
- stcredzero 16y ago
  I've never advocated banning anonymous mobs. However, I like pointing out when they do bad things. I find too many people seem to worship the activity of internet mobs as though they're inherently good, when they're no more inherently anything than any other sort of mob.

SimonPStevens 16y ago

While I have no sympathy for this woman, something in her story does concern me. "we have had so much hate email (over 400 pieces) , phone calls and regular mail." She violated some copyright. That is an issue between her and the copyright holder. I feel slightly ashamed to be part of a community (Not HN specifically, but the more global software community) that responds with hate mail and abuse.

skore 16y ago
As soon as something is "made into a facebook group", all bets are off, I suppose. This kind of abuse is rarely (if ever) justified, so I agree with you, but I would also add that it's her making this statement and I have kind of stopped trusting that voice.

mynameishere 16y ago

Not to defend her, but when your typical blog author finds out that something he wrote got published, his response is one of pleasure. This "editor" is wrong on all counts, but from her perspective, the response of the blogger is highly unusual.

karlzt 16y ago

instead of cookssource.com I get www.intuit.com.

erikano 16y ago
See googles cached version (I've posted it ITT).