Tastespotting... oh noes!
From the homepage of TS today:
"Thanks for a great 18 months! In light of recent legal complications, NOTCOT will no longer be operating tastespotting.com."
Dude. Duuuuuuuude. I haven't been this upset about a website since Bravo took over Television Without Pity.
Anyone have dirt? So sad!
elizabells
Jun 12, 2008 08:16PM
I KNOW! I just went to upload an entry and *poof* - TS is gone. Going to email someone and see if I can find anything out. Really weird....and depressing.
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I'm really upset too! It was my favorite site....
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I am crushed. I use to visit that site AT LEAST once a day.
I had been wondering this morning why it hadn't uploaded anything new since yesterday.
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This is a joke, right??
A nasty, evil joke??
Please tell me it isn't so??
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That's really too bad; and with no warning, too.... There were so many links that there must have been some which were not original and perhaps that's what was the downfall.
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I noticed its dated 6-13-08 and it posted today, 6/12/08. Friday the 13th horror show anyone? I've searched news sites and food news sites and I've found nothing about strife, lawsuits or the like. I'm sure it will come out (what happened) if it's true.
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It's the 13th here in OZ..
I wonder if the Tastespotting Stalker finally won out?
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chiffOnade? Oh hells naw. I don't care if her boyfriend is named Big Bear and weighs 450lbs or whatever.
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Is that the stalker?
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Jean didn't even know about the tastespotting stalker until I emailed her after our "incident" on PiEcon!!!
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Very sad, if true. I 'd like to hope it would resolve itself eventually without diluting the content.
Certainly enough for me to de-lurk here!
sfg
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Bummer city. I'm glad I've got others to mourn with, though.
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thats it. the last year of my life living tastespotting. i read it from the time i send my kids off to school until i tuck them in at night. what am i supposed to do? this has ruined my life. i dont know what to do with myself now. someone needs to pick up the ashes. maybe i should. would anyone want to help? this HAS TO HAPPEN so many people relied on this for inspiration. this is... i dont even have words to describe how i feel right now.
:-(
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:(
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Yes meatwad3030, I want to help! vive la inspiracion!
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Serious bad news....that was my favorite new-to-me food website...I kept saying "oohh! look at THAT! Must try it soon...oh! Look at this...god, that looks awesome! Wait, that looks even better!" on and on. Hope someone can figure out a way to revive it.
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::sob:: :(
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aaaaahhhhh! NOOOOOO! I just saw this too! First thing I check every day.
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This is terrible! What legal issues are they talking about? How can a recipe/food photography site be threatened with legal issues? And more importantly the hell am I going to do at work all day????? This is extremely vexing.
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Count me in as extremely disappointed. I would assume there are some copyright issues at stake. But I say it is free advertising for you blog/website. I almost always clikc to go to the websites when I find the pic interesting. Shortsighted I think on the part of folks with the copyrighted material if that is the case.
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Free advertising?
For whom?
How is it shortsighted?
If the photo is stolen, the photo is stolen. (Often they would NOT be attributed properly and it would be incumbent upon the photographer to pursue Tastespotting.) I didn't have this happen, but I know that was one of the grumbles I heard behind the scenes.
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In this case it was free advertising for the sites the photos came from as each photo (at least the ones I checked) was linked to the original source.
It is iffy that the photos were collected and hosted on a single server.
Now if the "original sites" stole the photo from somewhere else.....
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The main point is there are people "advertising" their blogs by using pictures taken from other blogs.
I'm sure these people rationalize their conduct by using the "public domain" argument, but if you didn't create the image then you shouldn't really use it.
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Unless it's criticism/commentary, or if they claim fair use because they're only using a small piece of the work. Which was generally the case with Tastespotting--nobody viewed it as a place for original work, it's a site that is intended to lead you to original content, by displaying pieces of images and attaching short comments. I think we're fairly certain that copyright was not the issue with Tastespotting.
If, of course, the "original" content actually copied photos from *other* sites (I guess this is what you are saying dave_c) then they are asking for trouble, but that's not really Tastespotting's problem, right? especially since they're still only using small pieces of images. Of course, I'm not a lawyer and all that.
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I literally gasped out loud when I read this. I'm really upset! What am I going to do at work? Where am I going to go drool over food pics...I found some great, beautiful blogs to read from tastespotting. I had checked tastespotting the other day and saw that there weren't any updates, which I found odd, because there is always a new posting no matter what I time i check in during the day. :( squared.
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I only wish this was an April Fool's joke! I'm SO upset! Where else am I going to find my daily fix of food porn!?
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I'm so saddened by this. I mean, I know there are lots of other sites out there to find recipes and great pictures, but Tastespotting was my main source of inspiration when it came to cooking endeavors.
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I share everyone's pain. Every day I would check out what was new and learned about a lot of great blogs that I now check on regularly as well. How unfortunate. Maybe some day it will make a comeback.
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Ugh!!! Our beautiful little world of inspiration and ideas - vaporized! How could they? And a legal thing?? Maybe it's the name, maybe someone else had "tastespotting" first??
It's just not FAIR!!
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I'm also really interested in finding out why the site got taken down. Tastespotting not only provided constant entertainment but was educational as well. Why would anyone want to take down what's basically a portal of free advertising? Very confusing.
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I don't know anything from the inside, but I've seen a bunch of posts going back into 2007 about complaints. Apparently people were posting pics that weren't theirs, and linking back to their own sites. None of the complaints were about pics that linked to the *correct* site. The people whose pics were stolen had a legit gripe, though I wish they didn't knock down the entire site to fix it.
So it looks like scammers and lowlifes have killed another great resource.
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Yeah, I did notice a lot of times the link to the person who submitted the entry didn't go back to the actual post. But there has to be a way to fix that! Didn't the tastespotting crew review posts before they went up? They must have, or there would have been a lot more spam/crap entries. Or a rule that entries must be submitted by the author of the post. Maybe there would be fewer entries, but there would still be some.
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I see. I never really had a problem going to the wrong site, only my work firewall blocking some of the links. It's sad that people would stoop to false links (this isn't a Rickroll http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickroll for goodness sake) just to bump up traffic on their site and end up ruining it for everyone.
It's a sad day, either way. Tastespotting was one of my favorite websites I encountered while exploring the innernit's food culture forum. It led me to a number of blogs which I RSS or check daily and opened my eyes to a number of things I had no idea existed.
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I had a few of my better flickr pics of food porn submitted to Tastespotting by random third parties who never linked back to my blog or flickr stream. Annoying (and something I'd like fixed---I don't like it when my stuff is appropriated, and I don't like it when content producers are dissed for what is a legit gripe), but I don't think that was the problem.
This could be something as simple as a name dispute. It'll sort itself out, the web community wants a site like this.
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I am so incredibly heartbroken by this. I visit this site at least once a day for inspiration, and to keep challenging myself as a new pastry chef. Where am i going to go now to find things and say "OOOH i'm going to have to try that!" ..... i can't believe it's gone, i don't even know what else to say.. i feel like a little bit of me died with the site :(
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I think it has something to do with copyrighted pictures. Yesterday Canada implemented new copyright laws to update our 98 year old copyright laws that did not refer to any kind of shared digital media.
What a disappointment I only discovered it a couple of months ago and enjoyed my ritual of checking it everyone morning.
Perhaps someone else could reincarnate it?
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I am in serious food-porn withdrawal! If anyone hears anything, please post an update! RIP TasteSpotting. You will be missed.
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I don't believe it's a law yet, it's just a Bill at this point.
I'm going to have to find more food porn. That just makes me damned sad.
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Facebook is telling me that "no. it had nothing to do with images/copyright." on Jean's profile. So I guess uh..guess we're all wrong.
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I saw another anon comment that said the same thing.
It seems that when you take down a site without much of an explanation we're all just gonna sit around like pundits and spin it any old way.
To continue doing that ... I wonder what other legal issues there would be besides copyright? (All the text was so complimentary, so it couldn't be defamation. Some sort of dispute over hosting ... someone contesting ownership of the idea?)
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I saw an indication that copyright was not the issue. Then I saw some stuff about a Tastespotting troll who apparently followed the links to harass and disparage the food bloggers. If that's true, perhaps the troll did something or said something that led a blogger to blame (as in, legally) TS for the harassment? I'm just guessing as well, but that thought crossed my mind. I'm gonna miss that site!!
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hmmmm....i have seen a couple food bloggers complain about sudden increase in spam comments....maybe that is a possibility.
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I know who you're referring to - she came to my site, as well as many others. While her comment was...odd...she didn't stick around too long, but I did feel a bit strange about the situation bc of what her profile said.
The whole situation is terribly disappointing.
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She's at it again. I saw her comments on two different blogs today and she set up a new profile. Truly bizarre.
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Can't bloggers set it up that you have to "register" for that particular blog before making comments? Or are they set up that way and this troll is still getting through by faking who they are? Isn't there a way to figure out the IP address of the sender of the Email to be able to block them that way? (Don't know a lot about this, obviously. <g>)
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@ k_d: "If that's true, perhaps the troll did something or said something that led a blogger to blame (as in, legally) TS for the harassment?"
If THAT'S true, that's the dumbest damn thing I ever heard. Might as well blame AG Bell, seeing as how he invented telephones, which led to the internet, which led to tastespotting, which led to you *choosing* to have a blog, which ...
Sigh. I guess I'm onto the "anger" stage of the grieving process.
ps: I don't mean your theory is dumb, I mean that I can totally believe it, because people are dumb.
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I'm with you, Eliza. People are just dumb.
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Okay, I feel like the oxygen has gone out of the room. Where will I go when I want tried-and-true foodie recipes? With pictures? Where will I go for inspiration, or just for cheering up? I have read tastespotting at home, in doctors' offices, hospital, everywhere.
Boo-hoo!!!
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So sad! I found so many great new blogs from there. It made such a pretty way to find new recipes.
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Anyone have a replacement for my addiction?
Luckily, Google cache still has it all.
Search google for this:
www.tastespotting.com/page/343/
343 is the page, just replace that number with whatever page you want to see.
Click on the cached link and you can see it all again. Scroll over the images to get the links to the blogs. Painful but better than nothing!
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Genius! I was just kicking myself for not having bookmarked a few of the blogs I'd discovered thru Tastespotting...thanks for solving my dilemma. I definitely wouldn't have thought that one up on my own.
And if anyone has a replacement, I was addicted as well and would happily take up another addiction. I mean, I'm not actually supposed to be working while at work, am I??
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Hey, I just tried your suggestion, but it keeps taking me back to the "hand-written note". :(
I was hoping for a work-around, too.
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Do a google search like this:
site:tastespotting.com salmon
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&am...
Then click on "cached" in the search results. You'll get the info, though without a lot of the formatting.
Do it quick, because you never know when Notcot will cut off the image access.
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I had no problems looking at the last 40 pages or so. Make sure you click the cached link. Also make sure you are clicking on the right search result, it needs to match your search term. If not you will get "the note".
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&am...
Click the 2nd cached link!
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Tastespotting.com allowed me to visit so many amazing foodie blogs! The pictures were so beautiful and inspired me to make quite a few dishes. Who needs those cooking magazines when you have Tastespotting.com?
Damn it! *shakes fist angrily*
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Okay, I've done some poking around and it looks like a good number of bloggers were having pics ganked off their sites and linking to bogus recipes by one particular poster, who I'd actually noticed before as posting way more than was healthy. TS would remove these links on request, but maybe it just got too much to keep up with.
So thanks, gingerbreadgirl03. Hope the traffic you got was worth it.
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I have it on very good authority that this has nothing to do with copyright or evil users, and that -- please, god! -- there's a chance that Tastespotting will be back if and when the legal issues are resolved.
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You know, I keep reading this, but it would be super if someone had actual info to back it up. I realize that if you're friends with Jean or whatever you might not want to tell a story you feel to be hers to tell, but some... crumble? Of something?
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