Time for an installment of Friday Things:
1. Food Bloggers Fight Back About Stolen Content on Facebook – If you’re not aware, there are thousands of Facebook groups that ‘share’ bloggers’ content. Meaning, they reprint the photo, the recipe, the entire blog post as if it were there own. All bloggers work so hard on our content, from recipe development to writing the post to the photography and editing our photos to the day-to-day time and energy it takes to keep a blog going. For people to steal content and repost it as their own disgusts, frustrates, and saddens me.
Image from Amanda’s post
And many others are disgusted, too. Here’s a list of recent posts by others on the matter. Read the comments sections of these posts to get a sense of how enraged other bloggers are about the issue:
Susan Powers of Rawmazing wrote this guest post on Dianne Jacobs’ site
Meaghan Mountford, blogging at The Decorated Cookie and author of Sugarlicious, wrote this piece
Amanda wrote What Every Facebook User Needs to Know
Copyright-issues-and-why-they-cause-a-lot-of-drama-mama-its-all-about-r-e-s-p-e-c-t-and-props-lots-of-props, by Jasmin of 1 Fine Cookie
No doubt there are other posts about it, but there are 1000 comments in those 4 posts to keep you busy for awhile.
As I commented on Dianne’s post, “It’s a negative time, energy, and resource suck on all levels. Sometimes I just have to let it go b/c I can’t control it all, nor can any of us. And it sucks up our time, good energy, and our creativity to police it.”
2. Ilume Coconut Milk Mango Candle at Anthro. ‘A warm, tropical blend of ripe mango and sweet coconut’ but no description comes close to telling you how good it smells. It’s perhaps the best-smelling candle jar I’ve ever stunk my nose into. I wanted to eat it. I wanted to wear it. It’s just outstanding. My taste in candles loves ranges from all-time favorites like Yankee Buttercream to Aveda Shampure but this Coconut-Mango takes the cake.
3. Since I can’t drink the candle, I’ll drink a Pineapple Mango Vitamin C Booster Smoothie (vegan, GF)
4. I set my flatiron on my 10 year old Mason Pearson Rake Style Comb
and melted it. I caved and ordered another one because no other comb is like it. It just feels good in my hair and in my hand when I use it.
I am painfully cheap and will buy store or generic brand chocolate chips if it will save me thirty cents and I’ll obsess over spending an extra buck on my preferred toothpaste, but when it comes to this comb, it’s the best and I paid up. I don’t use The Best lightly when it comes to cookies or combs.
5. Tori Spelling pinned my Healthy Fudgy Brownie Bites (no-bake, vegan, GF, grain-free/Paleo, soy-free, no added sugar or salt) the day after I posted them. I was so flattered!
6. I guess I have a way with the 90210 ladies and dough balls. Lauren Conrad featured my Raw Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls on her website as mentioned in item 8 here.
7. Upon walking into Anthropologie on the recent candle trip visit, my six year old said, “OMG Mom. I want to move in here!” You and me both, honey.
The sheer joy in her face and seeing the gorgeous clothes, dishes, books, and frilly, pretty things was just so evident. It starts young, doesn’t it.
8. I recently bought these OXO Good Grips Measuring Cups, Stainless Steel and I love them. Granted, anything was a step up from the plastic grocery-store set I’d been using for 5 years.
These feel so solid in my hand and goopy batter doesn’t stick to the inside of them. I use the quarter-cup measure to fill my muffin pan for Banana Yogurt Muffins and it slides right out.
9. I have spring fever and I wish the weather would get and stay warm. None of the teaser days where you get a hot snap for a day, and then it’s back to sweater weather. I love the longer days; now I just want them warmer. Like this.
10. These Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Crumble Bars are some of the best bars I’ve made in ages and if you’re looking for a 10-minute, throw-together recipe, I highly recommend them.
What are your Friday Things?
If you’ve made anything, done, seen, or bought anything fabulous recently, feel free to link it up in the comments.
Any thoughts about the copyright and Facebook sharing issues?
Combs you love? 90210 fan? Kitchen gadgets? Spring fever?
Thanks for the entries in the KithenAid 5-Quart Stand Mixer Giveaway!
Have a great weekend and check back for a giveaway!
LOVE LOVE LOVE everything in this post, and I want to move in to Anthropologie too! who wouldn’t.
Have a great weekend
Thank you for this post. I’m so glad people are writing posts like this to create awareness. I do think it is helping! I think people are sharing properly more than they used to before. Still a ways to go though.
Definitely a ways to go but hopefully all the voices from the peanut gallery will help to change things and at the very least, make FB more aware of how bad it is and we’re all so tired of it!
Great list and that’s fabulous about Lauren and Tori, you rock! Crazy about the content stealing.
A popular vegan blogger I follow said last week her post appeared in 4 blogs the day after she’d posted it as their own recipe. Outrageous!
My dumb question is, how are you all finding out about the theft? Am I just not looking for mine hard enough?
Congrats on Tori and those Peanut Butter Cup bars look amazing ;)
Some of it I find on my own (not even trying, it just literally shows up at me in my web travels) and others I am alerted by friends, fans, followers, and members of the group that Susan started that I linked to in the opening. It’s just such a shame…and so time consuming. Which is why I have to just let it go, most of it, most of the time!
Stealing bloggers photo’s is a not compliment no matter what people say. Unless you link back to there blogs, its an insult to their hard work. And when people say otherwise, it drives me nuts!
Great post about some super important issues right now! I love the marshmallows :)
It is indeed maddening with people out in the blogisphere (whether on FB or other platforms) steal others’ work. And then continue to get astronomical amounts of followers. What’s even worse is when they deny it after being called out.
Oh I know, the denial. Or the hostility when confronted. It’s like a car driver screaming at a pedestrian…like, uummm, no I think you have this backwards:)
All of this copyright infringement stuff drives me crazy and makes me so anxious, especially when the thieves start getting violent and mean – WTF?!
I want those peanut butter bars of yours. Big time.
Yes the hostility is just…amazing. Such a headshake.
Far too many times have we all been the victim of copyright theft. I will never forget when you told me about some woman selling your recipe on Etsy. Insane. Or when someone removed my watermark, stuck on their own like it was their photo. But they “didn’t know that was wrong”…? Where do these people come from?!??!?! It’s truly sickening. We work so hard! :(
So many celeb endorsements Averie! I can’t wait for you to be a celeb too. :) Please always remember me!
I should say the same about you, please always remember me :) And removing watermarks, getting hostile when confronted about things or playing dumb, selling recipes on Etsy…yes, it’s just…mindblowing!
Thanks for this post. So important to give credit where it’s due.
I was going to say that my Friday thing was the puffed millet (Arrowhead MilIs) I just poured into a green smoothie to see how it tasted, but um, holy crap—those mini PB cups in your cookie dough crumble bars are killing me. My wildest PMS dreams come true. I think that’s my Friday thing right there.
Wildest PMS dreams come true <--- love it :)
I could write a book about the copywrite, etc. issue, but I’ll save my fingers the frantic typing, because I know you know how I feel. It boils down to this though – people are jerks and we can let it bring us down or rise above it. Easier said than done, obviously, and a gross oversimplification of the issue, I know.
I am SO with you on the “some things are worth the splurge”. I will find myself at the grocery store anaylzing the price per ounce of a jar of pickles just to save 30 cents, but then when it comes to something like coffee, I don’t even blink about spending an extra $3.
My Friday “Thing” is the new Burr Coffee grinder I just ordered! I can’t wait to get it (in RED, no less!)
It’s snowing here, so just be glad you only have to deal with cold temps. UGH.
Wow, what an amazing week for you with all these celebrity endorsements! You deserve it, though – your recipes are both delicious and beautiful. Congratulations!
Thanks, Kelly! :)
I literally grew up watching 90210! Congrats on the celeb pinning and post! I always love reading about your Friday things =)
I think many of us have 90210 growing-up memories…I know I do! Glad you like the post :)
Loved Amanda’s post, very well written! Congrats on the Tori pin :)
I am with you on the copyright thing… I am currently writing a cookbook as a first time author, and I am so worried about accidentally using someone else’s recipe I’m nearly driving myself mad over it! Every recipe I’ve written, I double check to make sure my mind isn’t just rehashing something I read somewhere else–even recipes I’ve been making for years. I guess the fact that I’m being careful is good, but there are so many people who very BLATANTLY steal, that it’s getting crazy. So far my blog has been spared, but my photos aren’t that great yet so that’s probably why. It’s to the point where I cringe whenever I see someone share a photo of a food item on my newsfeed…
Congrats on your book and when I was writing mine, I went through the same exact thing you describe. There are only so many ways to make peanut butter cookies, or peanut butter banana bread; yes, the exact ratios differ, but there are a certain set of ingredients that have to be used, in pretty standard form, or the end result won’t turn out…so you’re always teetering on possibly duplicating someone’s work, even when you try not to. You can’t always reinvent the wheel on some recipes; some just ARE that way but driving yourself nuts over has this been done before…I was there and in the end, I just wrote my book knowing that every single thing was my own and that I did everything I could to make all content as truly original as possible.
How cool about Tori pinning your brownie bites! I grew up watching the original 90210 and just recently watched the first season! OMG, where did the time go?? :) Love your Friday Things!
I know…time.flies. Crazy, huh!