The editor of Cooks Source magazine, which made waves on the Internet this past week by using a writer’s work without permission and then acting smarmy about it, has finally posted a sincere apology (which states she has also made the donation the author requested to the Columbia School of Journalism). It sure took her long enough.
And John Scalzi, who had snarky words to say about the original non-apology, is still highly critical of this new one, noting that the pattern of unauthorized content uses uncovered on Facebook (not to mention her earlier stance that anything posted on the Internet is public domain) gives the lie to the editor’s assertion that it was “an oversight of a small, overworked staff.”
The final little annoying touch is the attempt to suggest that the real victims here are the people that Cooks Source “assists,” i.e., its readers, etc. Well, no. In fact the real victims — the ones who have suffered verifiable material loss — are the writers and rights-holders whose work was appropriated without compensation. It’s nice that Cooks Source has caved and given Ms. Gaudio what she asked for; I wonder how it and Ms. Griggs plans to compensate everyone else it took work from without compensation.
It is, Scalzi says, “the apology of someone who is sorry she got caught”.
It also attempts to paint Facebook users’ pressure on advertisers to drop their ads in Cooks Source as “[emotional and financial] abuse,” because “These small business owners work very hard to keep their businesses going in a bad economy.”
Yet in at least one advertiser’s case, this pressure turned into some pretty positive publicity. Rather than “abuse”, kudos poured into 2nd Street Baking Co.’s Facebook page after it promptly contacted the magazine to pull its ads. The bakery’s owner asked that rather than placing orders or sending cash to make up for the loss of business, well-wishers could contribute to a nearby food bank instead.
As Chris Walters pointed out yesterday, this sort of problem is always going to be with us. The nature of digital content is that it will always be easy to copy and paste, and Cooks Source is far from the only offender. Hopefully the Internet community will be just as vigilant when further abuses come to light.
