Prominent Food Blogger Discovers Plagiarized Ebook

[DonaldL.]

Prominent Food Blogger Discovers Plagiarized Ebook

The constant war against content scrapers and plagiarism on the web has become a standard annoyance for food bloggers, whether they have large or small readerships. But this week, Elise Bauer of the popular food blog Simply Recipes (which is a member of the BlogHer Publishing Network) discovered a new twist on the phenomenon: an ebook "author" had stolen pasta recipes and photos from her site and repackaged them for sale via Amazon.com's Kindle Store.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by DonaldL.

Prominent Food Blogger Discovers Plagiarized Ebook

My God! Who would think such a thing could occur?

A good question is how many people on MobileRead have a self published or otherwise book for sale on Amazon entitled "How to use your Kindle properly and profitably?"

[Giggleton]

Easy enough to fix, end anonymity and attribute everything to the source. Allow people to read before paying. No more copying, No more pirates, No more need for copyright.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Easy enough to fix, end anonymity and attribute everything to the source. Allow people to read before paying. No more copying, No more pirates, No more need for copyright.

Not likely to happen as long as some sellers and authors think exclusivity is better than universality. More likely to see an increase in piracy and plagiarism as groups are excluded from the ability to purchase.

[Seli]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Easy enough to fix, end anonymity and attribute everything to the source. Allow people to read before paying. No more copying, No more pirates, No more need for copyright.

And how would that help with 'authors' falsely claiming to be the source themselves? And people reading before paying, and not recognizing that the text was sourced elsewhere?

[Fbone]

Just one of thousands of ebooks plagiarized on Amazon.

[Dimwit]

It was always thus, authorship and copyright control demands vigilance. But now she has resources to control the problem. Litigate, complain etc. And use the situation as a marketing tool.

Not exactly a loss.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Easy enough to fix, end anonymity and attribute everything to the source. Allow people to read before paying. No more copying, No more pirates, No more need for copyright.

I see you're still working on your comedy routine.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

Easy enough to fix, end anonymity and attribute everything to the source. Allow people to read before paying. No more copying, No more pirates, No more need for copyright.

No need for copyright when nobody writes anything any more, sure.

[xg4bx]

to play devil's advocate, can one truly "steal" a recipe? i can understand and sympathize with the pics but how can one lay claim to a recipe?

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

to play devil's advocate, can one truly "steal" a recipe? i can understand and sympathize with the pics but how can one lay claim to a recipe?

The instructions are copyrighted even if the concept isn't. Some recipes are better-written than others, and easier to follow. Some ingredient lists are well-arranged, in order that they're used in the recipe and tagged to indicate how they're prepared ("3 cups flour, sifted, divided into 2.5 cup and .5 cup parts") and some aren't.

Anyone could probably get away with rewriting a set of recipes -- list the ingredients a bit differently, rewrite the text--but flat-out copying is infringement.

"Saute onions, garlic, and ground beef until done" is different, for the purposes of copyright law, from "add onions to medium-heat pan with 1 tbl of oil; stir until they start to clarify; add finely-chopped garlic and continue stirring until onions start to brown; add ground beef & make sure to break up any large pieces; stir often for 3-5 minutes until all the pink is gone."

Instructions can give details on how to check doneness at each stage, or alternate cooking utensils, or mention which ingredients can be increased or decreased to taste. They can be geared for beginning cooks, with great detail (as above), or for more advanced chefs, using less-common but more exact terms and not describing the process ("make a roux of wheat flour and clarified butter").

The information of what goes into a recipe and how it's cooked is not copyrightable. The specific description is.

[elemenoP]

In this case, they copied the photos, which are (or can be) copyrighted, and the exact text of the directions (which is a piece of writing and can be copyrighted). But it's true that the ingredients of a recipe are not subject to copyright.

And I love Simply Recipes, by the way!

eP

[hedy]

"It was always thus, authorship and copyright control demands vigilance. But now she has resources to control the problem. Litigate, complain etc. And use the situation as a marketing tool.

Not exactly a loss. "

It may help but still most annoying.

I love cooking and have just added Simply Recipes to my favorites.

Thank you.

Margit

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I see you're still working on your comedy routine.

That's the trouble kennyc... no work, just same old repeated...

[Fringecup]

Oh, boy! I've saved so many recipes that I got from other people, and I didn't note each donor's name. I'm sure my Grandma and hers before her did the same. Now if I wanted to publish a cookbook and used some of these hand-me-down recipes, would I REALLY be guilty of plagiarization? Years ago, composers used to copy each others' works, make some changes to them and that was considered fine. Do we call someone a plagiarizor because he wrote a sonata based on a theme from Paganini? I think it's just extending knowledge by standing upon someone else's shoulders.