Thursday 3 February 2005

Copyright or Right to Copy?

We interrupt regular programming to bring you some news about plagiarism of food blogs. A popular blogger saw her own recipe copied onto a forum which also included her picture of the dish. While it is the aim of most food bloggers to share their recipes, they would of course want attribution for their handiwork. I don't think anyone would want their labor of love to be copied and not be acknowledged for it. I hope that the forumers learned their lesson not to post cut and pasted material from other websites. Arguably, these blogs/websites are in the public domain but not linking back or at least mentioning who originally wrote the material is totally unfair. It is all about honesty and being truthful. I am not just talking about these forums, whose members and moderators seem to be either careless or ignorant, but blogs and personal websites who lift materials - yes recipes complete with pictures - from other blogs and websites. Me and some friends have seen them before. My advice is: you have to face the truth, if you can't build up your own recipe collection do not copy others' work without permission or attribution. Do not pass others' work as your own just so your blog/site can look good.

Now that the offending party (forumers) of that brouhaha has expressed their contrition and regret I hope everybody can move on and have learned a very valuable and important lesson.

See some copyright issues explained here for the US and UK.

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