Cooks Source Editor Finally Responds… Makes Things Worse [Updated]
from the maybe-copy-a-recipe-for-humble-pie dept
Yesterday, we wrote about how Cooks Source magazine had been caught pulling a story off the internet and republishing it, without permission. Making matters worse, when called on it, the editor, Judith Griggs tried to lecture the original author, Monica Gaudio, with a hilariously wrong explanation of copyright and the public domain, and even (condescendingly) suggests Monica should pay her for the editing she needed to do on the story. And, from that, the internet took over, posting messages all over Cooks Source’s Facebook page, and (more importantly) tracking down many other examples of such copying.
And, for most of the day, Griggs herself remained silent. However, she has finally responded, and done so in a way to make things worse. She wrote a mocking apology, which I’ll post in its entirety (typos and all), since Griggs has made it clear that anything she puts online she intends to be in the public domain:
Hi Folks!
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!
…Best to all, Judith
So, that’s not an apology at all. And it’s mocking why people have been ganging up on her. So, once again, people started commenting and mocking the magazine. And… again, Griggs seems to be making things worse. Amusingly, she’s trying to go on with “usual” business, putting up a “cookie contest,” and then asking anyone who “wish to be negative” to go elsewhere. Then there’s finally a series of “responses,” which do continue to make things worse, and suggest that Griggs still hasn’t come to terms with why people are upset. First there’s the “you just don’t understand” claim:
There’s lots of people here that do not seem to understand a few basics yet they seem to all be experts in the print business.
Update: There are some claims in the comments that these comments are from a “fake” account. The original comment does appear to be from the real account, but some are wondering if the user was actually Griggs.
Speaking of not understanding a few basics, why not start with how copyright does, in fact, apply to the internet? Then there’s the lashing out with threats of libel against those posting on the site, and a defiant promise to keep publishing as well as a promise to “take action” against those who “hacked” the website.
Notice that nowhere in this is there any attempt to actually explain how she thought it was okay to repeatedly copy articles and photographs into a magazine while presenting them as if they had been specifically commissioned or licensed for the magazine.
Anyway, we’ll continue to monitor and update with any evidence of real comments from Griggs.
Filed Under: cooks source, judith griggs, monica gaudio
Comments on “Cooks Source Editor Finally Responds… Makes Things Worse [Updated]”
Another case of “Go big or go home”, I guess…
In related news....
Cooks Source is pleased to announce the addition of our newest original author. You know her as a recording star, or else as someone who turned the online world upside down with her melodious musings….Lily Allen!
Yes. We’ve contracted with Lily for a six part series on how to cook in such a way as to become known as a sex symbol without being in any way ATTRACTIVE! Perfect for all of you with low self esteem!
She’s promised us six totally original articles! Certainly this will avoid the afore mentioned kerfluffle in the future. What could be a better response to lifting blog posts than hiring this rising star in the blogging/writing world?
To be expected
Copyright is confusing enough on its own. I suspect they were confused about the difference b/t copyright on recipes (there is none) and copyright on the narrative expression thereof (loads.)
Re: To be expected
I think her quote that everything on the internet is in the public domain demonstrates that her confusion on copyright goes a little deeper than that.
Re: Re: To be expected
As is most folks. Seems to be a problem of the law, honestly.
Re: To be expected
She didn’t just repeat a recipe she stole an entire article “A Tale of Two Tarts is ? 2005 by the author Monica Gaudio”
which is clearly copyrighted by it’s author
http://www.godecookery.com/twotarts/twotarts.html
Re: Re: To be expected
Yes, I know. The recipes themselves aren’t subject to copyright, and I suspect the confusion was over what constitutes the recipe.
*facepalms*
yes, that’s the ticket, stand in front of an angry mob and go “neener, neener, neener”.
“Notice that nowhere in this is there any attempt to actually explain how she thought it was okay to repeatedly copy articles and photographs into a magazine while presenting them as if they had been specifically commissioned or licensed for the magazine.”
Because it’s not OK 😉
Have you confirmed that those are actually from Ms. Griggs and not one of the fake accounts that were set up? I know what you quoted was sent from a fake account.
What she first did was VERY wrong, but we should make sure we only attribute to her what she actually did do.
Re: Re:
Interesting. Can we see evidence/corroborating links please?
Re: Re:
The linked quote on Facebook was made by the official fan page account – so unless someone hacked that, I don’t see how it could be an imposter. What makes you think it’s fake?
Re: Re:
“I know what you quoted was sent from a fake account.”
[citation needed]
Re: Re:
This quote…
“Hi Folks!
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!
…Best to all, Judith”
is from the real Cooks Source Facebook page. (I’m the first commenter in that thread, telling her that it’s 1870 people who hate her!)
But the last three links and associated quotes are from an imposter page (“Cooks Source Mag” instead of “Cooks Source Magazine”).
Re: Re: Re:
There’s no real indication that the “real” facebook page hasn’t been taken over by someone else though. I’m skeptical of the “authentic” response.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
There is no “real” indication that the entire world has not been replaced by a holodeck either.
Why do you need to be such a fucking tool?
Re: Re:
I agree, I’m not 100% sure that the “apology” is by Judith Griggs.
I guess you could add “libel” or even “fair comment” to the wealth of terms that are being misused by Griggs. What an embarassing crash and burn
FBI
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/ipr
Take action
Has anyone of the people vilifying Ms. Griggs thought to contact the advertisers in COOKS SOURCE and complain that the magazine is plagiarizing content and that they won’t stand for it. If enough advertisers complain or stop, maybe the magazine will fire this idiot editor. Or cease publication leaving Griggs without a job.
Re: Take action
A commenter in the previous post says that’s exactly what’s happening. Apparently someone did compile a list of their advertisers, and several of them are now pulling their ads.
Re: Take action
The advertisers have all been listed, and contacted, and are jumping ship in droves. Many had prepaid for ads, and expect to lose the amount paid for future ads. Those with e-mail got hundreds of messages, and at least one apparently needed to take their phone off the hook.
As for Griggs getting fired, apparently she’s the owner as well as the editor. If she’s been as stupid about how she set up the business as she is about copyrights, her personal assets may not be safe from all the lawsuits she faces from folks like the Food Network and Martha Stewart… So never mind losing her job: when this is over she’ll be lucky if she’s still got a house.
are you sure it’s her – not an imposter?
Is this from her real Facebook account or the fake Facebook account created by some wags yesterday?
Re: Re:
Even if it’s from her real account, there’s a good chance her account was hacked too. Not saying it was, or that it’s not her that wrote that, more agreeing that it could be a fake reply.
Re: Re: Re:
As no one from the magazine, including Ms Griggs, showed up to complain that the post was fraudulent I rather suspect it’s real.
Also the note at the end about the increase in the number of “friends” shows she, and perhaps her higher ups, are going on the old saw that even bad publicity is good in some form or another.
Now I can’t imagine why she’d toss gas on a well burning fire but she did and added a ton of traffic to the web site and maybe she thinks that will placate those who advertise there or maybe she’s hoping the storm will blow over, the name of the magazine will be remembered and increase what paid delivery it has outside the free zone.
Her problem with that is the people here don’t seem to forget this sort of nonsense. (Dark Helmet seems to have a database somewhere stretching back to the stone age on this topic!) and Slashdotters aren’t known for forgiving and forgetting once they mount their high horses.
This all should be very interesting.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
As no one from the magazine, including Ms Griggs, showed up to complain that the post was fraudulent I rather suspect it’s real.
Where would they have replied, assuming their account isn’t in their control anymore? From another account in the endless flood of wall posts? Even if they did, would anyone have noticed?
Re: Re: Re:
Actually, looking at the page the second comment was posted on, I’m guessing the “new account” is actually a fake one. So, we’ve got 1 fake account and 1 potentially hacked account… probably not worth trusting anything coming from either one at this point.
Downside of social media reactions
Andres at Technolama brings up the interesting point that there may also be a downside to the rapid viral spread of “social media justice”
http://www.technollama.co.uk/why-sue-when-you-can-use-social-media
Re: Downside of social media reactions
He does and, outside of the mandatory shot at file sharers, it’s a well written piece and I’d agree there is some concern though as one reply pointed out it’s nothing all that new.
I can remember web sites being taken down by a sudden increase in traffic due to the publication of favourable and unfavourable stories on Slashdot and early HTML forums being crashed by the sudden hundreds and thousands of messages.
It as called slashdotting and it still is when that happens.
Ms Grigg’s behaviour through all of this has been a snide and arrogant “bring it on” stand that has increased the anger and determination to do something about it rather than lowered the temperature one little bit.
Ms Griggs is as much responsible for her behaviour as are the posters there from twitter, here and Slashdot, among, by now, many others.
“we used to have 110 “friends,” we now have 1,870… wow!“
No, you now have 1,760 committed enemies.
Actually, last three links are fake!
Mike, the last three links you refer to, belong to the fake Cooks Source Facebook page (“Cooks Source Mag”)
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cooks-Source-Mag/159072764128073
The REAL Cooks Source Facebook page is “Cooks Source Magazine”
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cooks-Source-Magazine/196994196748
AFAIK the “apology” was just a post on the wall – mixed in with other posts. Likely a fake account & not the real person.
Re: Re:
Evidence please.
It certainly fits in with the tone of her email.
Updated post...
Updated the post to indicate that at least some of the comments appear to be fake.
http://twitter.com/#!/cookssource
some fakeness is fantastic and should be encouraged
Re: Re:
Short form:
No. Sooner or later, it will bite you on the butt.
Hard.
List of duplicate articles published in Cooks Source
101 duplicated articles so far found in Cooks Source, http://bit.ly/dDoxxP Many thanks to Krystal Donahue who has found most of these.
Help in notifying the other (original?) publishers would be great, or finding more examples of content that is duplicated.
Cooks Source advertisers have been contacted. In fact they have been inundated with calls and mails. Most have stated they are pulling their ads even though some have paid for several ads in advance.
lol
haha she is happy that over a thousand people ‘friended’ her to comment on her shit attitude? Does she not know people can’t tell her what they think of her treatment of Monica unless they ‘friend’ her?
More interesting info on Ms. Griggs
Posted on the newer FB page for CSM, fake or not.
via Angela Shirley:
You know, this post had me convinced that this was a fake site too, but then I found these links: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-172508875.html
http://www.allbusiness.com/environment-natural-resources/land-use-development/12639130-1.html
It …looks like it is possible that she really is this crazy, if her previous exploits are any indication.
Re: More interesting info on Ms. Griggs
What’s more, her reaction to her previous exploits makes it clear that she is unqualified to edit anything.
OK– can I just say something? I want to thank all of you for your interest in this issue, it was very difficult, as you have all seen.
The day of the meeting I worked 13 hours, had been to three meetings on the same issue, Jones Crossing, who was planning to put a 32 unit 40B (low income housing) subdivision in a very small, very wet property that had previously been rejected by BoH for 8 units. I had in the morning presented the plans — bad plans, ie: homes with detention basins in their front yards, a road abutting the wetlands (State and local bylaws are 100 feet away from wetlands) and a LOT of other issues. Additionally, they had already done some work very poorly and were under an Enforcement Order from the Conservation Commission to repair the work they did and didnt do.
The first meeting I presented to the Town Department Heads the issues at hand under Enforcement, that I got the Department Heads to not issue any permits until they got it all cleared up — this was an unprecidented move for the Commission; the second meeting, I tried to assist the new Conservation Chair to understand the issues, unfortunately she was not getting it, as she felt (her words) she didnt know the stuff and didnt get what she should be doing — I offered to assist her in every way I could.
The third meeting was with Conservation and all scheduled hearings, et all. I had by that point been working 13 hours, 9 hours the day before… only odd because I was supposed to be a part time employee.
By the time Jones Crossing was up I was pretty tired, as you can imagine. Mr. Jones, for those of you who have never worked with him is very argumentative, intimidating and angry person. The discussion was that he was denying that he did anything wrong (per the Enforcement Order) no one on the Commission responded at all and out of the blue, Mark Melican said I was being disrespectful. THis shocked me, and while I never called Mark Melican anything, I did say “son of a bitch” as in “I’ll be darned, damned etc, they finally got to me.” I didnt call him anything and am surprised that he thought I did and reported me to the Town Manager (who had been trying to get me fired for a year or so — this gave him his reason). YOu should know that MArk is a big tough contractor guy and would never be considered “delicate.”
What wasnt written in the paper was that I also also said, Mark, how can you say this, you never even come to the meeting to know what is going on. I also said to the CC — dont you realize I got the whole Town to stand behind us on this. I also said Why doesnt anyone say anything (so did the engineer for Jones)? The Chair was new and didnt realize she was supposed to stand between the applicant and the Commission, however she knows it now. And yes, I walked out. It was not right, and I did apologise to the Commission for it, but I was exhaused and pretty burned that my Commission wasnt doing their job.
It will be amusing to watch what happens in Lancaster as the natural resources are of great importance to the residents (per revent OSRP survey), and the Town powers seem bent on getting big business in, with zoning changes that greatly improve the atmosphere for clear cutting the vast open lands of the Town. The Conservation Agent position hours were not funded by the Town and were due to run out in January under my watch (which means I would have been out anyway), so whoever they hire to replace me will probably be cut, if they fill the position at all. Bottom line — take your business to Lancaster, they have a lot of natural land with no protection. The Commission is made up of a number of people who think they know something but unfortunately dont… and will not take the time to learn it… and I thought every one of them was my friend. Sad.
Oh, and PS– Yeah I am a pretty strong woman, and it does rub a lot of people the wrong way.–J.
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/lancaster-ma/TF5QUHQBIRT7HACCO/p2#c36
Crowdsourcing CSM infringement
There’s a thread on the Cooks Source Magazine FB page (the real one) that is crowdsourcing all of the times CSM “stole” articles from other sources:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=196994196748&topic=23238
Boy oh boy are there a lot of them.
Thanks! Another Website I will never go to. Of course I had never heard of this web site before they were bad. Guess you need a scandal to get recognized.
Cooks Source has been Downfalled
Suggest that you keep liquids away from your mouth while watching this where we find out Adolf is the real editor of Cooks Source.
Re: Cooks Source has been Downfalled
“Don’t cry. Ceiling Cat doesn’t judge.”
I was just coming here to post the Hitler link. Ah it’s great isn’t it ?
Don’t know if anyone caught the response on cookssource.com. Pretty good stuff (and full of typos… nice editing Judith!):
http://www.cookssource.com/
“We have cancelled our Facebook page on Thursday, November 4th, 2010 at 6:00PM. It has since been since been hacked by unknown parties and now someone else unknown to us has control of it. Their inclusion of Cooks Source issues and photos is used without our knowledge or consent. Please know that none of the statements made by either Cooks Source or Judith Griggs were made by either our staff or her.”
Mike, looks like this article is totally ungrounded. Still, the response was pretty great!
Re: Re:
And now that I read the whole response up there, I’m pretty happy it all went down. It’s clear they don’t appreciate the extent to which they stole other peoples’ work and/or are not at all sorry for what they did. They did make a weak promise to post sources and get approval to publish in the future. I guess that’s something…
Cooks Source - a real response
I’ve linked to a copy of a real response that was posted on the Cooks Source website before it was shut down. The tone and details are surely Griggs and she still does not get what she did wrong. Attacks abound.