* This is MY photo and a gift to me from my teacher’s last year. Do you know this picture was stolen and shared more than 28,000 times on Facebook, with no credit given to the correct source at all? AND, in some cases, my water mark was even cropped off!
Lately you have seen some AWESOME and beautiful food recipes, crafts, and DIY tips all over Facebook and most are shared, and shared and shared. Recipes/crafts are MEANT to be shared! But there is a correct way to do it and an illegal way to do it!
Also, as soon as a picture is uploaded to a blog/website, it becomes copyrighted. Recipes are also copyrighted. You can NOT copy and paste an entire recipe and repost it on Facebook or anywhere else. You can copy the ingredient list as that is NOT copyrighted but NOT the instructions or photo.
Recipe HERE
Did you know that about 95% of these recipes and pictures are STOLEN content and by “sharing” them YOU could lose your Facebook page? Let me tell you why and why most of YOU are being USED by these Facebook pages for their unethical financial gain.
What goes into creating a post for a recipe on a blog?
- Brainstorming creating a new recipe or adapting an old one.
- Making a list, cutting coupons and shopping for the ingredients while dragging kids to the store or finding a babysitter.
- Making the meal, dancing around kids with a camera and hoping to not drop it in the food.
- Plating the food, taking it outside or setting up good light. This can take up to an hour. Take maybe 50 photos trying to get the RIGHT one!
- Uploading the photos to your computer.
- EDITING numerous photos over and over to get the perfect one to post for the main picture. Then adjusting the other ones and adding watermarks. This can take hours.
- Writing the post. Again, sometimes hours. Making sure you didn’t forget anything, finding the perfect title, and scheduling it.
- Then you need to add it to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and every other way as a blogger you share with YOUR readers, all with a link back to your site.
Why do I do this? Because I love it, and I love sharing the things that I like with my readers! This takes me HOURS and how can I possibly get paid back for this? You come to my site (which costs you nothing) to see the actual recipe that I took hours to share with you, and I make a few cents from the advertising in my sidebar. Which pays my hosting and the OTHER 2 Mom’s that I employee to help me, so I am not working 90 hours a week, I only work 60.
How long does it take for someone to STEAL it from me and post it on Facebook with no link to my site and then have it shared 5,000 times all over Facebook? SECONDS!!
Why does this matter to you? Because the Facebook sites that do this, the cute ones with thousands of recipes and readers, all sharing great recipes (that they stole) they are using YOU. They count on you to share these tips, and recipes, with the intention of building up the page to SELL IT. They didn’t create any of these recipes, or make them, or photograph them, they just STOLE them from blogs and Pinterest. These cute friendly pages will sell their FB page and make money off you and me. PLUS, what they are doing is illegal and what you are doing is violating Facebook terms of service.
I realize this can be difficult to understand if you are not a blogger. You buy cookbooks right? Recipes are mean’t to be shared right?
What if you had a picture of your kids (the photo was watermarked) and someone took it and used it in an ad on Facebook and didn’t ask you? What if they were profiting off of your photo? You would be pretty mad.
But wait! This photo is copyrighted so that must ok then? Nope! This FB page took it, posted it on their FB page and didn’t link back to the site for the recipe. OurBestBites didn’t get any credit for this recipe that they took the time to make, photograph and post. Plus it was stolen 281 more times!
How can you share recipes and photos correctly? Easy. Per the LAW… You can share the ingredient list (NO instructions) and link back to the original site. It just takes SECONDS to find the site. Only share a photo if you have ASKED the blogger or website owner. This includes large sites like Pillsbury, and Nestle.
Below is an example of how to properly share a recipe without violating the law and respecting the people who posted it…
It also only takes a SECOND to google the image or the recipe list to find the original poster and thank them.
Where to repost violations, go HERE. More information from Facebook HERE.
Part comedian, part Dad, part athlete. He will boss around your children while they play ball.
Just as angelic as she looks, this girl could easily raise a Village by herself, and all the children would grow up to be President.
Self proclaimed, she would be a webkinz dog. Because, "they're cute, and puppies are too. And they're sweet and they always get along with other puppies."
This mini-Martha Stewart can handle ANY craft you send her way. She isn't all bows and rainbows, she's got karate kid moves!
Not "Pick-Me-Up" like caffeine, she wants you to pick her up! AND NOW!
Anything that can be destroyed WILL be destroyed!
Practically Perfect in Every Way for now! Nicknamed "The Panda" she is rolly polly and lives by the motto, "the little one, is KING!"
The resident Labradoodle, Miller got his name because Mom won and got to name the baby! Need something chewed up? He'll take care of it. Especially if it's expensive..
Wow! I had no idea I was doing that. It’s just so easy to hit the “Share” button when you see something good. I will make a note of that.
Not sure if you’ve covered this before, but there is a way to search Google by dragging the image into the Google Images search box.
http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/images/searchbyimage.html
Thank you! I use it all the time, but I forget to tell people about it.
Most people don’t realize the ramifications, not even reporters. Before I had my son 9 months ago I worked on an editorial team at a well known magazine and my main job was to make sure all the facts were correct and proper credit was given. You would be surprised how many times I had to hunt down original sources for things like photos or recipes or even personal quotes because the reporter didn’t want to take an extra 5 minutes to get the right info. It’s another reason plagiarism is dealt with so harshly in high schools and college, people lose their jobs over it and are sued all the time. Sorry you’ve experienced the theft of your great ideas and received no credit. On a positive note because we can never fully stop the copycats and lazy posters think of the theft as a compliment, that someone liked your idea so much they picked it over the million others out there. Again I’m sorry for the frustration you must be experiencing and thank you for all the great ideas you have been so kind to share with everyone! My family really appreciates them, and I greatly appreciate all the coupon match ups you & your husband provide!
And please pass on to your kids that Wikipedia is not a proper source when writing a research paper! Lol
Right on the Wiki part! LOL!
So, why is there a share button if fb doesn’t want you to share it that way. when i have seen something on your fb page & wanted to share it that’s how i did it obviously not realizing since the share button is right there…i bet tons of people have no idea about this because of it giving you that option to share….what if we fwd on your emails to friends because they haven’t signed up for your newsletter? we want to do the right thing 🙂
If you share something from my site or forward an email, there is a link in them to the site where they can find a deal or see the recipe. Facebook was not expecting people to steal photos from sites and copy and paste entire recipes and ask people to share them. But they do have it in their terms of service that you can’t. The share button is just that to share the stuff you like. I am letting you know that unless there is a link to the blog or website on a recipe or craft it is violating TOS on Facebook. So if there is NOT a link to the site, don’t share it.
I know, it is confusing!
so, by sharing from your actual fb page it is okay???
Yes and as long as there is a link to the actual site you can share all day!
um.. no it really isnt. Thank for this post. May I repost part of it.. and link back to you? 😉
Seems like Pinterest is illegal then? That is just one huge sharing website.
Seems like it huh?! Yes they have a TON of problems. BUT most of the time when you click on a picture you go to the site that the picture came from. They also dont list the entire recipe and instructions in one place, that is how they get around it.
Thanks so much for the information. (I had no idea how all that worked, found this very informational and helpful). I appreciate all you do to help other couponers save money. Keep up the good work.
Totally agree with Tammy, above. (Good thing I don’t cook and only drool over the recipes!) Thanks for keeping us on the straight & narrow.
I’m not a blogger, but I visit blog sites and I can’t believe people cheat and copy and sell others stuff as their own…what the heck, man!?
UGH!! This is SO frustrating. I have had this happen to me several times by one blogger…even after I {and several other bloggers!!} have asked her to quit stealing and give credit when credit it due. It’s just not fair.
I agree with you but in this new online world, stuff is going to get stolen, end of story. This post will hopefully educate your readers lessen some stealing in the long run. I think this is a hard thing with recipes bc even you had to have gotten your recipe from somewhere and just tweaking it to make it your own doesn’t seem very ethical either. Maybe you should post where you got the recipe that you tweaked. If you do that, bravo to you. And even if you do that, how do you know your giving the right person credit bc they could have stolen that recipe too.
It really isn’t the recipe, it is the image.
i LOVE FOOD!
Apparently, you do this too, because last time I checked enchiladas and tacos, chili rellanos, grilled corn with butter and lime and cayenne pepper are indigenous to the Hispanic people. These recipes are “tweaked” from the original source and even given a new name. Recipes are copied and tweaked, copied, and tweaked until there are a hundred different recipes’ that originated from that one. People just want to change one or two things about it to call it theirs, but guess what…it still does not make it right. And most likely, the authentic recipe is still probably the best. This goes for getting a recipe straight out of a cookbook or cooking magazine. I see the same recipes “tweaked” just enough to call it theirs so they can post it wherever online.
You have actually completely missed the point of what I was saying. Take a minute to go back and re-read what the issue and point of the post is.
Nope, I got it. And I agree with both you Tiffany and Kory. It is so not fair or cool to steal ideas without giving proper credit even if it is tweaked a little bit. It is never right to do something that is illegal no matter what the situation is, and it is unfortunate that some people take the credit for others creativity and hard work.
I would like to communicate with you more regarding this. Can you contact me directly? TY… Awesome Post and I will share from main link. When I post things on a blog etc… I always post “Main Source: HERE” Here being a link to the original HOME link. EVEN if I tweak the recipe etc to my and the families liking. So they have a opt to get recognition. I use all my own images etc as that is a main part of me doing what I do. FAMILY involvement…!!! I do share MANY recipes on FB into a main group. That group is a secret group and it only has 2 members. Me and my best friend. We conspire inside this group as we are over a hour form each other… It is our own pow-wow before we meet up and tackle various recipes. It being a secret group nothing is shared. And NO ONE will ever be added to our secret group. But I do want to know more of the details to this before I release my vary viable blog to the world. It is a family blog and has everything from recipes to canning to crafts to kids involvement to DIY projects to reviewing/testing products. To AWESOME deals shopping. TO Dining on a dime. Just want to do it right. Warm up my cold feet. 🙂
I think FB should have another button, its only fair if you dont know your breaking any law of sharing or they should be held responsible for the people who do do that!! just saying
Just want to make sure I am compliant with all this. I LOVE sharing recipes. Usually I will hit the share button and it has the direct link back to the website. The only time I copy and paste is when I need to print the recipe for myself and don’t want a lot of extra stuff printed on the page. I have begun writing a description etc when I share and I have been listing the website (or Facebook page) that it came from.
I notice there are a lot of sharing recipes where the wording is all clumped together and it says to share it on your wall for future reference…but those never usually have a link back…I would assume those folks are doing it wrong. For some reason I never liked sharing those…now I know why. My sensor was going off. I respect the work that food bloggers do and love sharing the recipes. I would never want to do anything to undercut anyone and their hard word.