The Cooks Source controversy

Today is a double post day because I cannot help but pay attention to this story.

Cooks Source is a small food magazine in the New England area, which I had never heard of before this week.

And then, the Internet happened.

The background, as briefly as I can explain it, is that a woman posted a story she wrote about apple pie on her personal domain with a copyright notice attached. According to her, she found out from a friend that the story had been published in Cooks Source without her knowledge. She requested the typical freelance rate ($0.10 per word) be paid in the form of a donation to Columbia Journalism School, and got a smarmy response from Judith Griggs, the editor of the magazine.

Of course, the magazine's Facebook page is being overtaken by people who are unhappy about the editor's policies of essentially stealing stories off the Internet, and many say that they have contacted advertisers of the magazine, who have agreed to stop advertising.

The most impressive part, in my opinion, is the work of independent citizens to uncover other instances of theft by the magazine. A thread on the Facebook page started cross-referencing instances of exact copies of stories appearing in Cooks Source, as well as NPR, Food Network, WebMD and Martha Stewart. They even made a Google Spreadsheet so anyone can see the list of stories and photos.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out, but if serious legal action is brought against the magazine, it will be because of some investigation by citizen journalists.