Cooks Source Magazine Apologizes — Sort Of 290
taco8982 writes "Cooks Source has published a statement in response to the uproar over claiming the web is public domain a couple of weeks ago. While it does contain an apology, I'll leave it to individual readers to determine how apologetic it actually is." It also seems that the publisher has decided to cease publication entirely.
Whining, Excuses and a Guilt Trip! (Score:5, Insightful)
Its sad really. The problem is that I have been so overworked and stretched that when this woman -- Monica -- contacted me, I was on deadline and traveling at the rate of 200 mile a day for that week (over 900 in total for that week), which I actually told her, along with a few other "nice" things, which she hasnt written about.
We're all busy, man. I slept four hours last night after spending dinner out at a birthday party and coming home to try to write 2,000 words for NaNoWriMo. If I now build a spider that scrapes all of cookssource.com and I offer it up in a torrent, are you going to excuse me because I was too busy at the time to realize that I was infringing on your work? Do you think that Monica f rollicks through the flowers all day long?
She doesn't say that she was rude, she doesn't say that I agreed (and did) to pay her.
Isn't that weird how people get rude when they unexpectedly find their work being used to sell magazines? And then when you say that you'll negotiate a price later you think they'd just clam up and be happy they even got something! Well, that's how your excerpt sounded, anyway. Look she quoted you as saying:
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!
Yes after that statement, it's clear you totally meant to pay her. So if she's quoting you out of context, why didn't you include excerpts from her initial contact to show how rude or out of line she was?
leaving several people, including a chef who had relocated to this area from Florida -- out of work
I am just sobbing with sympathy right now. Please, please take all my money and give it to this poor man who apparently made an imprudent relocation. Listen, my father has to go on unemployment from time to time ... so can I go around using New York Times articles to sell my magazine?
... when she wanted money for Columbia University, it seemed ironic because there were all these people in this small town going into the holidays with no jobs, and no, well, nothing.
I don't care if she wanted the money for heroin! It's her work and you used it without her permission. You're exhibiting the attitude that cooks should not be reimbursed for their recipes! Then because she's using this money for college you hope to garner more sympathy because you live in a small town with high unemployment?! So by that logic, I guess Nigerian 419 scammers are saints?
The bad news is that this is probably the final straw for Cooks Source. We have never been a great money-maker even with all the good we do for businesses.
Look, you just outlined how poorly your operation is being ran and used that as an excuse to use other people's work without permission. Maybe it is time for you to move on to something else. It's nice that you are guilt tripping everyone into thinking that they were 'the final straw' to kill you.
If you want to be in publishing, you should study copyright law. If you think copyright law should be different in regards to recipes and -- seemingly -- the internet, then you should become a lawyer and work to change that. You might want to take some business courses too if you think small magazines deserve to survive in this environment, maybe apply at Columbia University? br>
Your proposition that "every time someone has a bad day, it's okay for them to use anyone's material online" is laughable and would result in pure chaos. Enjoy your own self-created chaos. You did it. You. Take some responsibility and stop whining with long drawn out excuses and guilt trips.
Re:Whining, Excuses and a Guilt Trip! (Score:5, Insightful)
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 gaul of this woman to end her sorry-assed not-really-an-appology by once again blaming the woman she stole from. It also appears she lifted material from Disney, Martha Stewart and many others. Why isn't she blaming them?
"If none of you had ever put stuff on the www's I would have never been so tired as to steal it and mock you when you called me on it."
Re:Whining, Excuses and a Guilt Trip! (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, the French are really just incorrigible that way!
Re:Whining, Excuses and a Guilt Trip! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, the French are really just incorrigible that way!
Ugh, once again my craptastic spelling and lack of coffee prevented me from typing "audacity" so I just mailed it in with "gaul" (which should have been "gall"). To one poster in particular, Kyont (145761), I wish you had given me a chance.
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Along those lines, my favorite sentence was this one:
The lack of understanding there is mind boggling. It's not surprising that she's non-apologetic if she doesn't understand the fundamental gap in comprehending copyright evinced by that statement.
Re:Whining, Excuses and a Guilt Trip! (Score:5, Informative)
She didn't want the money for HER college. She asked that a donation be made to the Columbia School of Journalism.
Copyright law IS different in regards to recipes - they can't be copyrighted.
That said, what was lifted wasn't a recipe, but an article discussing the history of apple pie, which happened to include two archaic recipes for apple pie as illustrations of the changes.
Note, for the record, that the lady who you suspect jumped the gun discovered that her article had been used without her permission did so when a friend contacted her to congratulate her on getting her article published.
Note further that checking Cooks Source on the web showed that virtually every article in the magazine was lifted from some other source without permission.
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In fact, the "apology" states that they usually get their content by copying it from whatever cookbooks publishers send them to review!
Re:Whining, Excuses and a Guilt Trip! (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright law IS different in regards to recipes - they can't be copyrighted.
"Recipes" can't be copyrighted in that you can't sue a chef for making your recipe. However, the actual written text of a recipe can have copyrights and you can definitely sue someone for publishing, word-for-word, your recipe that you wrote. The written recipe is copyrightable, the actual proportions, sequence of steps, etc. is not copyrightable.
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The recipe as a list of ingredients and instructions does not in general qualify for copyright protection.. (This does assume United States jurisdiction.) Here is a nifty quote and link for you:
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html [copyright.gov]:
Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of ingredients. Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients such as those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions. Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary expression--a description, explanation, or illustration, for example--that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook.
You would have to include more than just a standard recipe to qualify. In this case the "magazine" is clearly in violation (assuming they did not have permission) because they copied not just the recipe but the format, style, imagery and non-recipe text included in the artic
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The bad news is that this is probably the final straw for Cooks Source. We have never been a great money-maker even with all the good we do for businesses.
I find it somewhat amusing that this publication was built around commercial copyright infringement, thus most likely had few costs besides those of publication... and still made little money. But was somehow important to "businesses".
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How many other instances of copyright violation do you know about in this publication?
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Isn't that weird how people get rude when they unexpectedly find their work being used to sell magazines?
What I think is wierd is how some people will wrong you, then tell you you're rude when you express your displeasure.
This world sucks.
TCP Connection (Score:5, Funny)
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"Fin" means "(The) End" in French, maybe it was a pompous way of saying goodbye to her readers.
I do prefer your explanation though ;)
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"Didn't notice" copyright? (Score:2)
Now there's an excuse: "I went on the WWW, completely ignored the fact that everything is copyrighted as soon as it is written, whether it says '@ copyright 20XX [insert person]' or not, and just copied and altered it anyway"
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I thought I read somewhere that other articles had been lifted from other sites, too. Wonder what the explanation for those is...more deadlines?
Also, from the last sentence in the "apology":
To one writer in particular, Monica Gaudio, I wish you had given me a chance.
Uh, Gaudio DID give her the chance. CS responded with a very snippy email claiming the net was public domain.
Re:"Didn't notice" copyright? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who uses the phrase "copy written"* is unqualified to edit anyone else's prose. Ever. If you don't know the difference between "right" and "write", go back to elementary school until you get it... correct.
*Unless they're using it in the sense of "to write copy (text), such as for an advertisement".
Its sad really... (Score:2, Funny)
It's sad when steals something that doesn't belong to them.
Sadder still when they whine about being too busy to take a phone call or reply to email in a timely way when the owner tried to contact you. This is the 21st Century, on the internet; we don't wait two or three days for people to get back to us.
And the saddest thing of all is an editor who can't spell "it's" correctly in the very first sentence of their lame explanation for having stolen something.
Re:Its sad really... (Score:5, Funny)
And the saddest thing of all is an editor who can't spell "it's" correctly in the very first sentence of their lame explanation for having stolen something.
Why do you think she wasn't writing her own material in the first place?
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Even better: Did she not argue that her magazine's rewrite actually made the article, you know, better and more professional?
If THAT is what this woman calls quality text...
Good bye! (Score:2)
She's a snake, and I'm glad her magazine folded. She seems full more of excuses than remorse. She regrets getting caught, and having it publicized, not that she took an article without permission.
And? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're a publisher. You are in business. You publish a magazine. Thus you have a legal responsibility to understand copyright. You still don't get that taking something EVEN WITH THE AUTHOR'S NAME INTACT is copyright infringement, and that just because it doesn't say "DON'T STEAL ME OR I SUE YOU" it doesn't mean it's okay to pinch someone else work. You didn't ask, so you don't get. It doesn't really matter about offering compensation after the event because, by your own public admission, you did something that you shouldn't have. That author has the legal right to block your publication and do all sorts of nasties to you because of that. A lot of copyright cases end up with a financial settlement but that's not *required* or even *satisfactory* to resolution of a problem unless the injured party agrees to that.
"I copied your article from the Times into my book word-for-word, but didn't bother to ask - sorry about that, here's some cash!" - it doesn't work like that, and if you'd asked, the author most likely would have been more than happy to let you have it (your name in a published book = wow) but equally they may be under some contractual restrictions regarding what they can do with that text, they may have licensed it from someone else. But you don't know because you didn't ask.
Then you go and make an essentially naive and unresearched opinion that shows you've never understood copyright law (it doesn't need an attribution or even a copyright symbol to be subject to copyright). You don't immediately retract or explain. Admittedly then you are harassed unnecessarily because of a stupid quote that you stupidly said, but the core of the problem is that you're a publisher that infringed copyrighted content (as far as the world knows, because you've just admitted that). *That's* why advertisers won't want to deal with you, because you could be out of business tomorrow if it turns out that you've been doing it for years because you do not understand copyright law and finally it's caught up with you. It's not a big deal - even the big papers do it - there have been a couple of "whoops, we used your photo without asking" cases in the national press in the UK lately and it's ended up in court or in large settlements.
The problem was not understanding the law surrounding the business you were in. The rest of the "admission" is just emotional padding to try to instil guilt. A lot of people are out of work at the moment, but nowhere near the most in history (and considering the population is ever-growing, that means this *isn't* the worst it's ever been by a long shot), and trying to push that angle is just crass. And we're not talking about someone who wants to bankrupt you, we're talking about someone asking for fair recompense for an infringing act that you just admitted you did.
Nobody cares about the damn recipe, you just made a fool of yourself by not understanding copyright (and in your business, that's like a taxi driver not knowing what a brake is), and then propagated that by making hugely incorrect public statements and trying to paint people as bad.
If you've gone out of business because of your own misunderstanding of a well-known law within your professional field, that's really your fault and no-one else's (and I fail to believe that this one incident is enough to stop the business unless it's through your own unwillingness to actually continue - you were already far, far, overworked but couldn't afford to hire help - sounds exactly like a business on the edge to me, and this was just the straw that broke the camel's back). In future, consult lawyers, don't make public statements, and learn how to do your own job - not painting everyone else as the enemy might help as well, also having a bit more of a steel jaw when it comes to random people on Facebook etc. commenting on you.
I don't really care about copyright and have had websites that I've written stolen and copied byte-for-byte onto confusingly similar domains. I threatened too, and got them removed
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The material was already mirrored on several similar sites at other people's request but someone just wanted to claim someone else's work as their own and thus ended up in trouble and getting shut down.
I had the same experience about ten or so years ago. The worst ones kept the text intact except the copyright notice, and replaced my name with their own. In my mind, the pagarism was far worse than the infringement. I only wanted credit for the work I'd done, not money.
I had literally dozens taken down, and
She Bragged on facebook (Score:2)
She wasn't sorry at all, but was happy that it gave her tons of new "friends" and views.
She just didn't understand that she was stealing someone else's labor.
Have a little pity on the magazine (Score:2, Insightful)
I didn't pay any attention at all to this when the initial article went by, don't even remember it.
I'm really confused by the Slashdot ethics sometimes.
If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party.
But it's not, it's stuff off web sites, and we identify with producing that, so we think the infringing party is the evil doer.
This is (was) a two-person organization putting out a tiny little magazine that was given out for free at
Re:Have a little pity on the magazine (Score:5, Insightful)
Something else I've seen on /. (usually in regards to the CueCat): it's not my job to support a poor business plan. Failure is always an option in any business.
And, frankly, I think you're wrong about the music thing: if someone was downloading rips of songs, burning them to CD, and selling them on the street or giving them away free and being paid by advertisers, most of Slashdot would agree that's wrong.
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>>>selling them on the street or giving them away free and being paid by advertisers
Yes we would. We don't have a problem with home owners "sampling" a movie prior to buying the DVD or CD legally. But we'd have a problem if they started profiting from the practice... that makes them a true pirate. Just like this "Miss Cooks" gal.
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You're exactly right. Articles like this would make for a good study by comparing comments with other articles on copyright, DRM and so on to see if a specific commentator switches sides. Either people are switching sides or we are just seeing different "parties" come out of the woodwork depending on the article content.
Re:Have a little pity on the magazine (Score:5, Insightful)
...or there are two different arguments. As a musician, I don't mind if you download my music, however I would take exception to you claiming it as your own and publishing it for profit.
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There are many differences - if we wanted to make them equal then
"Magazine X [which is avaliable for free and makes no profits whatsoever] printed a [recipe written by a [multi-millionaire recipe-creator, who sued college students for thousands of dollars], with all the information required to purchase more of this person's work]"
Which is totally different. Brackets up there inte
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- It's not the initial act of copyright Infringement that angers me.
- It's the magazine's attitude that they did nothing wrong, and don't think they should pay the recipe writer, and they can't believe the owner even bothered to write and complain to them.
- If the mag had just apologized, everything would be cool.
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Anon. Coward writes:
So if I rape your mom but apologize afterward, everything's cool?
HUGE difference in the crime. One is merely taking an article w/o payment (a few pennies lost) while the other is physical & emotional abuse.
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If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party.
It's not black and white. If she had saved some copyrighted text from a website to her computer and read it on her iPod then that would be analogous. Or if she downloaded some music rearranged it, called it her own and then published it for money, then that would be analogous. What she did was steal others work for profit.
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"If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party."
Speak for yourself. I have complete contempt for anyone who rips off other people's work in this way.
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I didn't pay any attention at all to this when the initial article went by, don't even remember it.
Awesome, then you're just as qualified to make judgements as the lady who stole the article is to decide what's public domain.
I'm really confused by the Slashdot ethics sometimes.
I'll give you a hint: There's more than one person on Slashdot.
If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party.
But it's not, it's stuff off web sites, and we identify with producing that, so we think the infringing party is the evil doer.
Although I have no doubt you could find someone on Slashdot that supports re-publishing someone else's music for their own financial gain, you might have a hard time finding two. Even stealing music for personal use is not exactly supported.
This is (was) a two-person organization putting out a tiny little magazine that was given out for free at the grocery store, so far as I can tell. Imagine your mom and her next-door neighbor putting out a magazine, assuming your mom barely knows anything about copyright.
This lady assumed that if it's free to get it's free to use and free to redistribute. For people who aren't hip-deep in the thing, the Internet can definitely give that impression.
Who makes up something as goofy as "the Internet is in the public domain" if they don't think it's true?
If that's honestly the way you think, you must get taken in a lot. "I didn't know
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Music Copyright - Rich global companies making huge profits off other people work, some long dead
This - Running a (very small) company based largely on other peoples work
No don't see any comparison here ...
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I think you're confusing something here:
We're not okay with people infringing on Big Labels' copyrights. We do, however, advocate fair use. And we're also in favor of proportional penalties when copyright violations do happen.
Now, we all remain human and are thus not perfect. After all the bullshit MAFIAA has heaped upon the population, do excuse us for being on David's side per default, just to be sure, until Goliath can prove that his demands are reasonable.
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Music Copyright - Rich global companies making huge profits off other people work, some long dead
See? This is my problem. I think the real issue is that a lot of folks on SlashDot automatically equate copyright issues for music with the insane abuses and invasions that are committed by the RIAA and other major media companies. Unfortunately, it's pretty rare that the same group which throws up this same correlation thinks of the artists who are either independent, or for one reason or another are "represented" by one of said media companies.
Now look, before you go flaming me into oblivion, I'm
Re:Have a little pity on the magazine (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm really confused by the Slashdot ethics sometimes.
If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party.
It's not confusing, and the position taken by many slashdotters is more consistent then you seem to want to think. The main distinction is what the infringing party does with it. Infringement for commercial profit (which is what happened here) is rarely if ever supported. Infringement for personal use is tolerated by some, rationalized by many others, and (though many pretend not to notice) villainized by a segment too. Additionally, if I think that *AA studies vastly overstate the effects of 'piracy' or that the awards given by some lawsuits are excessive and well beyond the damage done, it doesn't mean that I condone infringement.
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Or maybe, just maybe, it's because it was a for-profit business.
And it may also be because the creator of such content, after finding out about the infringement, asks for a donation to a small college instead of suing for millions of dollars.
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If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party.
No we wouldn't. I might criticise the infringed party if they claim ludicrous damages, but in general I'd support their right protect their copyright.
I think the problem most of us have with the likes of the RIAA, MPAA, etc isn't that they're protecting copyright, it's that they're behaving like dicks while they do it. The same can hardly be said of the woman in this case.
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then pay attention now.
this is what she said when she was initially contacted by the author:
seems her flippant "apology" only came AFTER the story went viral
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
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If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party.
Who is this "we"? I believe that you are full of shit. Numerous people have been spanked for unauthorized commercial use of music much to the rejoicing of the Slashdot community at large. My perception of the prevailing groupthink is that Slashdot is not forgiving of unauthorized commercial use.
This lady assumed that if it's free to get it's free to use and free to redistribute. For people who aren't hip-deep in the thing, the Internet can definitely give that impression.
And yet, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
I've had small businesses fail. It's like a death in the family. It's awful.
For her, it's a tragedy.
No, it is not a tragedy. She brought it on herself. It was her responsibility to determine whether she had the right to reuse the material created by others, and any respons
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Actually, from where I sit, the answer is "No."
The problem with copyright infringement with music is that the RIAA is going after the wrong people. They're going after downloaders, when it is actually the uploaders who are infringing copyright.
Read the law, Title 17 of the US Code. [cornell.edu] In America, copyright is all about distribution. It is the distributor of the copyrighted work who is breaking the law, and not the recipient.
Now, you can make complicated arguments one way or the other about what distribution me
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I'm really confused by the Slashdot ethics sometimes.
If the subject were copyright infringement of music, we'd all be in support (or at least sympathize with) the infringing party.
The magazine did the equivalent of: taking other music in violation of copyright, repackaged it in a convenient form, and passed it off as their own work. I haven't seen "slashdot" advocate that so I'm in turn puzzled by your confusion.
Sorry their small business went under, but you'd think somebody in the publication business would grasp the most basic concepts of copyright. Did this magazine think they could scrape newspaper websites for articles and republish those too?
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You are making a false equivalence between different kinds of copyright violations. Private individuals downloading copyrighted music for non-commercial use is against copyright law. But it doesn't deprive musicians of much (if any) income, since they make most of their income from performance and merchandise sales anyway. But when a magazine publishes articles from a writer without attribution, they are profiting off the writer's work and depriving her of the income (since selling articles to magazines
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In general, people on Slashdot aren't so much against the punishing of music copyright infringements; they're against fining US$250.000 for each individual song, starting legal suits without so much as a shred of evidence and offering settlements with the threat of ridiculously expensive and long-winded courtcases.
The music industry's legal campaign seems to have little to do with "justice".
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And someone on Slashdot should know the difference between loose and lose.
Reminds me of that AISD teacher Karen (Score:4, Informative)
For those who forgot the story: "... I observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization. ----- "Mr. Starks of Helios, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom.... I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows." continued: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/linux-stop-holding-our-kids-back.html [blogspot.com]
Later when Karen received a lot of internet attention, she tried to blame others. She should have been blaming herself (stole students' property, threatened a lawsuit against Helios), but instead filed a defamation suit against Helios.
Same applies to this woman behind Cooks. She has no one to blame but herself.
She says the author of the stolen recipe was wrong, but it was "Miss Cooks" who was wrong,
because of her poor attitude. She's like a thief caught at 7/11 - blaming everyone else except herself.
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P.S.
And yes I feel a little bit of sympathy for this woman, but that's how the free market works. Bad businesses, like Cooks and Circuit City and Commodore, deserve to disappear and replaced with better businesses.
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I don't know about sympathy, but I am curious as to who taught her to lie like this. You don't publish a magazine without learning something about copyright.
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Well, if you follow the blogs of the first-round of commentators, they dug up some local newspaper articles with her name on them. Seems she's in and out of the local small-town politics, holding various town and county positions... and has the same stupid, defensive attitude when she performs badly there, too.
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You know what though, Karen was handled with a lot more class. She only witnessed the gnashing of internet teeth, she did not feel their bite: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/17874 [p2pnet.net]
Although if she then proceeded with an actual suit afterward, all fault would lie squarely on her, I didn't follow the story much after the Ken Starks defense of her.
Pot, meet kettle? (Score:2)
Its interesting to see all these comments in this article saying things like "Maybe she will learn to respect copyright and the labor put into copyrighted works next time" and so on because if this was an article about expanding DRM, the comments would be more along the lines of "Dirty bastards, I should have the right to listen to music and watch movies freely."
I realize that its not necessarily the same commentators, but still. How does that saying go, you can't have your cake and eat it too?
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Not the same thing.
We don't have a problem with home owners "sampling" a movie via the net, and later buying the DVD or CD legally. But we DO have a problem if that downloader started profiting from the practice... i.e. selling bootlegs. That makes them a true pirate. Just like this "Cooks" gal.
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Not the same thing.
We don't have a problem with home owners "sampling" a movie via the net, and later buying the DVD or CD legally. But we DO have a problem if that downloader started profiting from the practice... i.e. selling bootlegs. That makes them a true pirate. Just like this "Cooks" gal.
The problem with that is, most of the people I see downloading commercial content illegally DON'T go out and buy a license for it later. And I'm not just generalizing, I know a whole lot of people of all age groups and walks of life who do this. Then they start to do this repeatedly and think its so convienent and they can get away with it that they justify their actions and buy far less content licenses than they normally would, so then the content industry is indeed losing money on things that that person
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"I should have the right to listen to music and watch movies freely.
From what I've seen, the majority opinion is "I should have the right to use media which I have paid for, on any display device that I own, for non-commercial purposes", not "I should have the right to copy anything without paying, then profit from selling it on"
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Yes, because DRM doesn't affect legal buyers of such products. Just ask the people who paid for AC2 when the Ubisoft DRM servers were down.
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Yes but the current state of DRM exists because of the mass amount of people illegally downloading content online and copying it. Sure copy protection isn't new, but the industry has had to react to the extensive piracy that started in the late 90s with mp3s, movies and software. How do I know, because I was close to the whole thing, I was actually one of the first ones who received a cease and desist from the RIAA back in 1998 for mp3s that were on my webserver. I've seen the whole thing play out from nea
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Despite super-hilarious claims to the contrary, Slashdot is not a hivemind.
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Good riddance to a hack publication (Score:3, Insightful)
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My favorite part... (Score:2)
... is the end of the page, where two large graphics cover the last part of the text, and beneath that is a link to something about Intuit web site building software.
Award (Score:2)
No - maybe "quater-assed" at best...
Apologies usually don't start with a 4 paragraph rant on rude the person you're apologizing to was...
No excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
This woman actually wrote: '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!'
That is not a slip of the keyboard or a typo or a mistake brought on by fatigue or overwork. That is a basic mindset. There is no argument or essay long enough that could make it otherwise.
The Writer's Thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
The author's thoughts on the "apology" are here. [livejournal.com]
She basically had the same reaction we all did: What a load of crap.
"copy written"? (Score:2)
...copy written...
Wow. This Judith Griggs (who edits Cooks Source magazine) is REALLY in the wrong business. The word is copyright, Judith. As in the author has the right to determine who may copy their work. Not copywrite.
Judith Griggs is not qualified to edit her own letters, let alone a magazine.
Summary of Apology (Score:4, Informative)
"I'm sorry...
that I got caught."
Re:rtfl (Score:5, Insightful)
I just read the letter, and he sounds more like he's trying to blame someone else. Anyone else get the feeling?
It's not an apology, it's an explanation.
I just hope that the next enterprise this guy starts is noticed and watched carefully for the same shit. He's not likely to change his spots.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't even dignify it with the word "explanation".
It's a load of whiny excuses in which the culprit claims to be a victim, much like a killer caught in the act complaining about people not being fair to him when they treat him exactly as he deserves.
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely. And she still doesn't understand copyright. *rolleyes*
"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."
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It was a pretty natural mistake, considering that the writer referred to the other party this way:
this woman -- Monica
Typical usage when you and your readers both aren't familiar with the person in question would be to use either their full name, or their last name and a title like "Ms." or "Dr.". Refusing to use the person's last name is a fairly typical tactic to try to diminish the authority of somebody who happens to be female. Essentially you are repeatedly calling attention to the person's gender, like you believe that i
Re:But but (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:But but (Score:5, Insightful)
Information doesn't want to be free.
People want other people's information to be free.
Re: (Score:2)
Not quite. Copyright was originally to protect authors from publishers, and publishers who'd made deals with authors from other publishers. Note the US Constitution says "authors and inventors" can have a limited time monopoly, not publlishers. Nobody dreamed that some day everyone would be a publisher.
But I agree -- we need copyright, but the terms are WAY too long and fair use should be protected. However, I personally don't believe that bits in a computer should be considered "tangible form", as there's
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cory Doctorow has proven you wrong by putting ALL of his books online, for free, at craphound.com. He credits his status as a New York Times best seller to this. Nobody ever went broke from piracy, but many artists have starved (or gone into another line of work) from obscurity.
If your logic were right, nobody could ever sell books to anybody but the library, since anybody can go to the library and read all the books they want for free, in the comfort of their own home. You can also get CDs and DVDs there a
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
But when was the Bible not translated? Ulfilas translated it to Gothic in the 4th century, and there are English and French translations from later in the middle ages. A quick wiki search shows up that the ban on translation was made by Pope Gregory IX in the 13th century, and it doesn't seem to have stopped much.
Maybe "translating" really means "owning" and people didn't own it because it was prohibitively expensive until the printing press. If you can't afford a book, what does it matter what language it'
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"In early Christianity the Bible was written only in Latin"
That would be the New Testament, the Old Testament was Hebrew, IIRC.
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I believe the poster is referring to William Tyndale
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Lucky thing his name was Luther. He fit right in.
Re:But but (Score:4, Interesting)
Petr Chelický had Zwingli beat by decades. Of course, Wycliffe got there a century earlier than Petr.
And various other small-p protestant movements go back almost as far as the Catholic Church--Valentinus, Basilides, and others were writing schismatic texts in the 2nd century AD--Valentinus being not just theologically different, but also reformationist in the sense of being opposed to institutional corruption in the Church (e.g. nepotism in the appointment of bishops). A massive schism resulted between the Catholic Church and the early protestant Gnostics. Many reforms in the Church, numerous theological responses*, and even ecumenical councils were responses to early reformers.
Heck, even the Nicene and Apostle's Creeds used by modern Protestant (and Catholic) churches are themselves repudiations of earlier protestant sects--the whole "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, of things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the begotten of God the Father, the Only-begotten..." creed was an attempt to stamp out early Christian sects with different theological interpretations than those endorsed by Rome.
*e.g. Irenaeus' "Against Heresy" c. 180 AD and "Philosophumena" of Hippolytus (trad. Origen)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, assholes manage to convince themselves they've been wronged in all sorts of ways. It makes the crocodile tears more realistic. Women are practically magicians at it. I guess you've never seen a woman get angry at her boyfriend for catching her cheating? It's art.
two words (Score:2)
It's more than stupidity. If the snippy note had begun with the phrase "My understanding is that [content on the web is public domain unless accompanied by a copyright notice]" her appalling ignorance would have earned her a brisk education from the aggrieved party, and then she could have shot herself in the foot on the next exchange.
Robin Hood had the brains to hide in the forest while practising his unique brand of beneficence. Google had bags of coin to weather postbellum negotiation. Plainview had H
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, people make the "wait, people do something I don't" joke? What is this? 1991?
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It didn't strike me as being well-written. Perhaps there was a reason that they were borrowing content. Just a thought.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, the name "Cooks Source" is now available, no need to worry about "copywrite" or trademarks!
Shouldn't it be "Cooks' Source" anyway?
Dumb biatch...