Attention: The Web Is Not Public Domain

Back in 2005, Monica Gaudio wrote a nice piece about apple pie recipes for a medieval cookery enthusiast blog. Five years later, her post appeared nearly verbatim—without compensation or permission—in Cooks Source magazine. And then it got worse.
Assuming an honest mistake had been made, Gaudio reached out to Cooks Source—a non-profit publication with a listed circulation of 17,000-28,000 readers—asking first for clarification, then for compensation (in the form of a $130 donation to Columbia J-School) and a printed apology. Instead, she got this response from Cooks Source managing editor Judith Griggs:

But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence [sic] and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally.

Which is several shades of incorrect! The "need of editing" Griggs is referring to involved fixing up all those pesky, true-to-period 16th century English spellings. As for public domain, let's use this as an opportunity to review the rules of the wild west we here call the internet,