Cooks Source, Copyright and Public Domain

Margaret Esquenet, attorney at Finnegan, was interviewed by Melissa Block of National Public Radio (NPR) regarding copyright and the public domain. In this interview, the two discuss the legal implications of a story on apple pie that Cooks Source, a food magazine, copied and re-edited from the Web without the author’s knowledge. The author, Monica Gaudio, discovered what had happened and approached the editor of Cooks Source, Judith Griggs, only to be told that the publication had done nothing wrong because the Web is "public domain." Esquenet states that this argument is "false" and  that "anything written in the last 10, 15, 20 years, (is) virtually impossible to be in the public domain." Esquenet goes on to describe the legal implications of publishing online as well as offer advice for those who do publish on the Web on how to protect oneself from incidences like this. "The fact that this happened I think is actually very interesting," said Esquenet, "and, it shows that maybe there's a bit of a turning point that people are beginning to understand that authors should get compensated for what they create."

To listen to the complete interview please visit: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131168884