Monday, March 12, 2012

Blogging plagiarism

The last two recipes I posted were not created by me (nor did I claim they were).  I believe I mentioned in the chicken sausage one that I got it off of another blog a couple of months ago and couldn't remember which one.  I copied the photo and the text and saved it to use at a later time.  My mistake for not also copying the blog web address.  The chicken pizza one, I found through the picture I copied from the web of the previously mentioned blog.  Through that picture, I did come upon a recipe sight for low carb recipes.  That's where I got the pizza chicken recipe.  Being the brainiac I am, I did not notice that the plates in both pictures were the same, so likely came from the same source.  Someone was good enough to point out to me earlier today where both of these recipes came from (although I knew where the chicken pizza came from), in a fairly accusatory and angry manner.  I have since had contact with the creator of these recipes and she was very generous in her willingness to share.

Bottom line, I'm not attempting to be malicious or  underhanded in any way.  If I find a recipe I like on-line, I'll adapt it to fit my diet and possibly post it.  I will definitely link it to it's original source from now on (especially since I now know where they came from)...as I don't want to cause any discord in the web world.  The last two recipes I adapted were from http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/index.html.  An excellent sight if you are eating low carb.  I thank Linda (the creator of the recipes) for allowing me to adapt and re-post her recipes.  And I thank Angie for pointing out my obvious faux pas and demanding retribution.  See her angry rant here.  Scroll down, it's the long comment near the bottom.  There was an additional comment she made, but Linda asked me to remove it, so I did.

Just to set the record straight (and I'm sure you all knew this), every recipe I post is adapted from some recipe I found in a cookbook, or on the web, or from someone I personally know.  I'm gonna come clean and say, I did not create Cauliflower Sheppard's Pie (maybe it was President's Choice).  Every recipe on the web is adapted from some other recipe and the original creator is rarely credited.  We tweak and change to meet our own needs.  People will comment on some recipes I've posted in the past and ask if they can re-post it, by all means please do.  Change it up to meet your needs and feel free not to credit me.  I don't care.  In fact don't credit me because I know I've adapted it from something I've found on the web (where it's been adapted from some other source) or in some other publication.  I'm just hoping to help others by getting new ideas out there.  Most of them aren't even new...I just try to adapt it to make it Dr. Poon (high protien and low carb and fat) friendly.

These recipes are all over the web.  How do we know who the original "creator" is?  I found the chicken sausage recipe here as well as here and here and here and here.  There are also many more sights that have the exact same recipe on it.  So who have I truly "stolen" it from?  What if I'm not crediting the original creator?  None of the above links link to Linda's sight (but I'm confident she did create the recipe).  I'm just trying to make a point here.  By posting my (I use that term very loosely) recipes on the web, I'm inviting anyone to make them, adapt them, copy and paste them and generally share them with who ever they want.  If this isn't what I intended, I'd make my blog private and only invite certain readers in.  What would be the fun in that?  Lesson learned, but please don't ask me to find out and credit who I adapted the other 8 recipes from...my head will explode if I have to think that hard!