Damage Control on the Internet

A follow-up to the Cooks Source story: How Not to Piss Off the Internet.

Magazine Lifts Blogger’s Article, Tells Her She Should be Grateful for the Edit

(My Article) From PC World:

Cooks Source, a small cooking magazine in western New England, has recently come under the justice-fueled fire of TEH INTERWEBZ.

Basically, the story is this: Blogger Monica Gaudio discovered that Cooks Source had lifted her article and published it in their magazine without her knowledge or permission.  She contacted the editor and requested an apology, as well as a donation of $130 to the Columbia School of Journalism, in return for the use of her work.  After some back-and-forth with managing editor Judith Griggs, Gaudio received the following email:

“Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.
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. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. 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!”

Griggs’ bad attitude, coupled with her poor excuse that this kind of thing happens all the time on college campuses (where I hear it’s, like, kind of a big deal), has since gained her incredible notoriety on the internet.  The internet flash-mob has naturally risen to meet the plight of the under-paid, under-appreciated blogger (in this case, Gaudio), sabotaging the Cooks Source Facebook page(s), creating fake Twitter accounts, and generally being ruthlessly annoying to the publishers/editors of the magazine.