Anyone who has been on the web for the last week has probably heard of the Judith Griggs/Cooks Source cluster. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail because it's easy to find.
Freelance writers work their tails off and battle every single day against those who think "it's on the web so it's fair game". No, it's not. The actual odds of something being in the public domain are smaller than something being protected by copyright.
While I never posted anything to the "fake/not fake" Cooks Source Facebook page - because I'm just not that witty on demand - I enjoyed the show. The freelance writers banded together to champion on of our own. We may be in competition with each other on some level, but in the end we will fight for everyone's right to get paid for their work.
The Cooks Source hullabaloo will die down and be replaced by another social media call to action. But, I don't see Judith Griggs et al riding off into the sunset of anonymity anytime soon. If the large companies with expensive attorneys decide to pursue action against the alleged theft of THEIR property? Cooks Source is a small mag with a small staff and no articles of incorporation on file that anyone has found. While I like to think that small businesses are successful, I don't think the coffers of Cooks Source are deep enough to handle the statutory penalties for copyright infringement.
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