Cooks Source infringement controversy

The Cooks Source infringement controversy is an Internet phenomenon which occurred in November 2010, when Cooks Source, a free, advertising-supported publication distributed in the New England region of the United States, became the center of a copyright infringement dispute after the magazine reprinted an online article without permission of the author.^[1][2] The controversy was fueled by social media and crowdsourced investigations finding additional alleged infringement and plagiarism. The incident became an international topic of news and analysis,^[3][4][5] which expanded to become an internet meme.^[6][7] On the issue of copyright, the incident illustrates that "masses of Internet users are very good at finding examples of copyright infringement, which counterbalances how easy the Internet has made plagiarism in the first place."^[8] At the same time, the response by the Cooks Source editor "may well become a digital textbook example of how not to respond to grievances in the internet age."^[9] The incident was named Journalistic Error of the Year for 2010 by Craig Silverman on his website Regret the Error.^[10] The fallout from the controversy drove Cooks Source out of business within two weeks of it breaking in full.^[11]