Important Update: Our Permanent Shift Away from Creative Commons
At Bob’s Market and Greenhouses, we've always aimed to deliver top-notch, inspiring content to our community, including our beloved weekly recipes that help home cooks explore new flavors. However, following a thorough evaluation of evolving trends in digital content licensing and the rise of A.I. tools, we've decided to permanently cease using all Creative Commons (CC) licensed works across our platform going forward. This includes the immediate and final removal of all CC-sourced images from our weekly recipes, with no plans to reinstate imagery in that section.
What is Copyleft Trolling?
For context, "copyleft trolling" describes an increasingly common tactic where individuals or groups vigilantly track and enforce copyleft licenses—like those in specific Creative Commons options (e.g., CC-BY-SA, which mandates "Share-Alike" for derivatives). Copyleft aims to encourage open sharing by requiring adapted works to carry the same permissive terms. Unfortunately, this has spawned "trolls" who scour the internet for even slight or accidental infringements, then issue demands for compensation, takedowns, or lawsuits—often prioritizing profit over true creator advocacy.
Though Creative Commons was founded on positive principles of collaboration and openness, the current online landscape has exposed risks from such aggressive enforcement, turning well-intentioned compliance into potential headaches.
Our Past Use of Creative Commons for Publishing
In the spirit of fostering a collaborative community, we have previously published selected photos from our in-house collection under Creative Commons licenses. This allowed others to freely use, share, and adapt these images while aligning with our goal of promoting creativity and accessibility. However, as part of our broader commitment to avoiding the vulnerabilities associated with CC, we will now cease using Creative Commons entirely—including for any future publications of our own content. This ensures consistency in our approach and protects against potential misuse or enforcement issues on both sides.
Why This Change?
Our core focus is ensuring a smooth, secure experience for our users. By fully eliminating Creative Commons content and committing to never use it going forward, we're proactively avoiding these pitfalls. Key reasons include:
Eliminating Potential Disputes: Despite diligent adherence (such as accurate attribution and licensed commercial usage), ambiguities in CC licenses can still attract unwarranted claims from trolls.
Streamlining Operations: Handling enforcement issues pulls resources away from our primary mission of crafting original recipes and resources.
Prioritizing Control and Originality: For our weekly recipes, this means they will remain text-based moving forward, without any images returning. Elsewhere on the site, we'll exclusively use imagery produced in-house by our own photographers or through AI-generated visuals created by our team, giving us complete oversight and quality assurance.
We recognize this may change the visual appeal of our recipe section, but it allows us to maintain reliability and focus on the essence of our content—the recipes themselves.
Thank you for your continued support and understanding as we implement these measures to protect our platform. If you have feedback on our recipes or other site features, we're here to listen!
Keep Growing,
Bob’s Market Team
