Cooks Source Magazine

There have been many PR disasters in the past and now there's a new one taking place right at this very minute. I got alerted to this story having read a brief tweet which interested me enough to explore a bit more detail. Basically the background is that somebody wrote an article which was then published in the Cooks Source magazine. Now that would have been marvellous if the author had submitted it to the magazine but they hadn't. Cooks Source magazine has apparently lifted it without permission from the original author. The author wrote to the magazine and asked for an apology and a donation to an academic institution.

The editor wrote back and not only said that anything on the web is considered " public domain" but that the author should be grateful to her for rewriting it and further suggested that the author should compensate the editor. I really don't know where to begin in order to comment on such insanity. Unfortunately for the magazine they have a presence on Facebook. Their wall is being flooded with comments, none of which are complimentary. Their presence on Facebook is beginning to resemble that of a bombed and ruined city. I suspect anyone and everyone who works for the magazine is currently in hiding, or if they're not they probably should be. The discussion section of their Facebook pages has now been taken over entirely by people posting sarcasm and new comments are being added to their wall every minute.

As yet there is absolutely no response from the magazine, no mention of an apology, in fact no mention of anything! I took a look at their website and there is no comment on there either. Some people have said that they are contacting their advertisers and suggesting that they may wish to reconsider placing adverts with the magazine. If this goes on for very much longer without any retraction or commentary I suspect that the magazine will be out of business by the beginning of next week.

This is a new and wonderful example of the power that social media can hold over traditional published resources. Perhaps this would be a fitting reminder to PR companies that they no longer control the conversations. Looking back at the wall I can now see the various authors including Neil Gaiman have a link to and are publicising this copyright fiasco. I can see no way in which this is going to end well for the company, and I'm sure you will probably agree with me when I say I don't really care. However it's also important to consider the other side of the coin. Granted that the editor was completely in the wrong, insensitive, rude and stupid. If the magazine does however close (and this is of course simply an assumption on my part) is that perhaps rather too much retribution? I'm drawn to also consider the case of the woman who recently put the cat in the bin. That was of course an indefensible act and as a cat lover I was appalled, but not as appalled as those people who sent her death threats.

While social media can be a powerful source for good and for righting wrongs there does come a point when we move from justice to vigilantism. It's very hard for me to care about what happens to this magazine, and perhaps that's one of the problems. My immediate reaction was to post to their wall and indeed that's what I did, and I don't feel sorry or bad about that because I wanted to show my outrage. Perhaps that is all everyone is doing; showing their own individual outrage, but the problem that we now have is one of verging on the baying pack out for blood. I don't think that's too inflammatory because if the magazine does closedown, or its advertisers are frightened away, or innocent members of staff lose their job because of the stupidity of one person I think we all have to take some responsibility. It's all too easy to make comments, to show outrage, to make threats and to try, even in a limited way, to take the law into error own hands. Simply because social media resources allow us to do that however we all need to take responsibility and decide when enough is enough. If I was looking at their Facebook page now I do wonder if I would actually make any comment, because I think everything that could be said has been said many times over.

I think we all need to consider at what point do we stop acting as individuals showing justified outrage and become part of a bullying crowd which is entirely out of perspective with the original offence. It's a very hard call, and quite frankly I don't know what the answer is. While, as you know, I am a firm advocate in favour of social media the freedom to speak comes, as it always does, with a price.

Comments

[Stephanie]

If it had just been this one article, perhaps. I just went through the rest of the magazine, and could not find a single page that wasn't local advertiser stroke that I couldn't source outside of the magazine. Disney, Chow.com, WebMD, Food Network, Sunset Magazine were all stolen from. I found pictures from Real Simple, Pumpkingutter.com and Hallmark Magazine.

[Polyxena]

This wasn't isolated incident. I had heard of other case from someone I follow on Twitter who is cook and writer. It's appalling behaviour and their arrogant response even worse.

[Robert C Roman]

Stephanie has a point. Between the rampant plagarism and the lack of any apology, I think they may have justified the actions of the crowd.

[Niamh]

This is really shocking - but maybe this is also just publicity for the magazine? I certainly never heard of it before, had anyone else? Michael O'Leary logic - no publicity is bad publicity and the more provocative you are the more you'll be talked about.

[johann]

This was just posted by Griggs on the Cooks Source facebook wall and no edits were made:

"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"!

[Helen]

Hm, they still don't seem to concerned about it then do they. Wonder why no one has sued them yet?

But then how could an individual amateur take the the sheer cost, time and risk involved in filing a copyright/IP case. I think this is what leads people to choose the social media approach to justice, because they feel they have no other option http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/. Then it all gets out of proportion because people love the David v Goliath aspect and want to help out the little guy.

Perhaps the vigilantism would be reduced if there was a more streamlined approach to challenging copyright infringement in the first place?

[Anonymous]

Just curious what your opinion is now that it's been discovered (allegedly) practically *ALL* of Cooks Source material has been lifted off the internet. This includes sites such as Paula Deen's, Food Network, NPR, WebMD, Hallmark, just to name a few.
This Magazine has been profiting on the backs of other's work..is this fair? Is this just? Curious as to your opinions as this story continues to unfold.

[Murielle]

"I think we all need to consider at what point do we stop acting as individuals showing justified outrage and become part of a bullying crowd which is entirely out of perspective with the original offence."

This is exactly what I think. I believe there's always a moment when the rightly so outraged posters turn into a lynch mob. I start feeling sorry for the editor now as the outpour of hostility is overwhelming.

[Phil Bradley]

Thanks to the question from 'Anonymous'. As is becoming clear, this doesn't appear to be an unfortunate one off, as the magazine has been taking copyright material from a variety of other places. I find it interesting that no other authors have discovered this before though - I regularly check the web to see if any of my material has been used without permission, and I always contact any website that does - it's not frequent, perhaps once every six months, but it does happen. Now, if I was to play Devil's advocate I could view this in the same way as someone leaving their phone on a table and walking away, then complaining that it's been stolen. Yes, we blame the thief, but don't we also think the person who left their good behind, or who leaves their front door unlocked, or the keys in their car as also being culpable for the theft? We have to take responsibility for our own materials, be they physical or intellectual.

However, that's not really a route that I wish to go down here in detail. It's clear that this editor has been ripping people off wholesale and I think she should be sacked because it's completely unacceptable. Absolutely no question in my mind about that at all. Moreover, anyone else further up the chain who could be expected to exert authority over this issue should also be sacked or resign. No question of that either. What's unfortunate however is that if there are other people who work for that magazine (and I have no direct knowledge of this) end up out of a job because everyone is screaming out for a resolution, and threatening to boycott the magazine, is this fair on them? While we want justice for the owners of the material that's been stolen, shouldn't we equally want justice for people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own?

This may not occur of course, in which case *in this instance* I'm not really that bothered what happens to the magazine, editor or owner. However, looking at the wider picture, at what point does the power of the group to judge a perpetrator outweigh the original fault? For example, the woman who put the cat in the bin lost her job and got death threats. Is this an acceptable level of retaliation? THIS is the point that really interests me.

[Muzzlehatch]

As far as I know, this publication exists as a locally distributed print vehicle for advertising. It's left in small piles in local restaurants and shops for customers to take.

The pages of the magazine also appear as graphics on Facebook, not as text.

Therefore, there would have been no easy way in the past for copyright holders to discover the infringements, because the text of the magazine is not searchable or "Googleable" if you will.