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I am so sad! I check this site a couple of times a day, especially when it's a really slow day at work. It's a bummer when (if as speculated) a few grumpy people ruin it for the majority.

I might have to go cry now.

There have been (already) rumors of someone starting up a similar site, btw.

I'm so super sad! That website was one of my newest favorite discoveries. And now it's gone! And the sad thing is that there is no way to even look at archives to write down some of my favorite bloggers' websites.

Yesterday I kept on re-freshing the website in hopes of seeing new recipes posted, but no such luck.

That totally sucks, my guess is that they were hotlinking the photos which basically causes all of the bandwith to come from the people they were linking to every time and image comes up whether you visit their site or not. If people pay for bandwith we are talking real dollars here with no ad revenue. Hotlinking isn't illegal yet but its very borderline. Ideally they would just support the image files themselves or though something like photobucket and then provide a relevant link. This could be done in a totally legit way if someone put some effort into it. Again this is just speculation but given that clicking on an image took you to the appropriate website it looked like hotlinking to me.

Oh, I am so sorry to hear that. Tastespotting was a constant source of cooking inspiration.

this is hugely disappointing. and i'm kicking myself for not having bookmarked more recipes.

That's so depressing. It seems like there are some simple UI changes they can make to get around this, but I guess they figure it's not worth the hassle. I hope whoever caused this can handle the responsibility of making the entire Internet sad.

this is the saddest news EVER...i think im gonna go cry in a corner now. =(

sally, I've submitted stuff to tastespotting before, and I don't think it's hotlinking. You provide a separate file for the photo, and then a link to where the photo is from.

This just sucks. I went there every day!!

One note - they definitely weren't hotlinking; you had to upload a photo to Tastespotting itself in order to submit. So everything was hosted on their own bandwidth.

It's amazing how far reaching this "site assassination" has been! I wonder if we'll ever find out the details of what happened and if we'll ever have anything as good as tastespotting was.

I've been in mourning all morning over this.

Well, if its not hotlinking then I have no idea what the legal issues could be, if its just an issue of control over images and whatnot I don't think its any different than a google image search in which case the legal answer was simply providing people with a piece of code allowing them to opt out. The code thing wouldn't work here but there has to be some way of screening the links against a list of sites which have opted out. I wish they would let us know whats going on. I'm sure there is a tenable solution for this.

Okay, I don't know what went on with Tastespotting, but I'd like to clear up some misconceptions.

Google images is considered fair use because it's a thumbail. Sites can opt out of image search (or any search) by placing appropriate code on their site. Many do.

Tastespotting was using 250 px photos, not a thumbail and there was no "opt out" code.

Some bloggers do not want free advertising and many do not want their images reposted (often with credit errors or incomplete credit). Further, tastespotting was not blocked for google image search, which meant that a photographer the lost control of that image when it was reposted (and might be credited when reposted from there but as often happens, it would be credited to tastespotting, not to the originator).

As for opting out, last I heard, Tastespotting did not have a blacklist for bloggers who did not wish to be featured. Not to mention the fact that copyright does not require that someone opt out of having it violated. It should have been incumbent upon Tastespotting to develop a "safe list" of bloggers who opted in for reposting of their material. Or contacting those and asking permission. It was a curated site, not everything submitted would be posted.

Yes, that's a solution, but it's a heck of a lot more work than just going into a queue and picking out pretty things and clicking "okay".

I'm so upset over this. Tastespotting was my daily dose of food porn and I was addicted!

Tastespotting....please come back!

how was it different from the regular notcot site? people are more protective of their food photos?

I'm so very disappointed that tastespotting is gone....

I know they didn't have an opt out I'm suggesting that they provide one which should clear up some of the legalities. Opt in is about impossible. When it comes to the net, putting anything online assumes risk. You can disable the ability of people to right click your photos, ie like locking your doors. If you leave an unlocked car on the street you should expect it to get stolen whether its "the law" or not, this kind of thing has to be enforced on both sides to be effective.

I'm very confused by the "legal issues" as well. I would have thought that their use of single images to encourage you to link to a site were completely under fair use. It's a single image, it's not replicating the food article, and it generally had a short review or comment. It was little different, really, from a newspaper using a single image and blurb to give a short, positive comment on a local art show or movie.

In all likelihood what they're doing is legal, but they don't have the money to hire lawyers every single time someone gets their panties in a twist.

As for the people who hate being linked... how odd. Understandable, of course, but this is also the Internet. If you don't want to be seen by the world, keep a journal locked down to friends.

This is such sad news. I was wondering why my Reader hadn't pulled up any Tastespotting today. =-(

As someone already explained, food bloggers shouldn't have to specifically opt out to prevent people from using their images. That would require them to have knowledge that Tastespotting existed and while it might be unimaginable to people who think it's a central food blog hub or something, you don't automatically become aware of Tastespotting the moment you post something food related on the web.

And you can't blame some people for not wanting their content being used to help get Tastespotting traffic and thus advertising profits. Tastespotting essentially doesn't generate any content of it's own and just leeches off other people's content.

I'm not saying that I didn't like Tastespotting. I checked it pretty regularly. I'm just not ready to blame whoever it was that generated the legal issues for Notcot/Tastespotting. There are other perspectives to consider first. And clearly we don't know the whole story.

I thought tastespotting was user submitted? They went and grabbed stuff from people's blogs?

SleepyDweller - some bloggers submitted their own work, others submitted their favorite posts they'd spotted - so until the visitors started coming to "spotted" site, the blogger had no idea they were featured there.

(Some bloggers did not wish to have their photos placed on tastespotting, because they weren't always credited within the text, only via the link - which as we all know, is not adequate in the era of "I found it on the net, it's free.")

If image use were an issue, why are the other Not Cot sites still up and running? I feel like there has to be something else...

And in fact I read that a particular troll was using Tastespotting as an entry point to a number of food blogs that he would then terrorize in comments.

Perhaps that, combined with concerns over the source of the content, pushed Tastespotting over the cliff.

Aw, man. This kinda sucks. I've recently become semi-vegetarian (I still eat fish) and I loved the amount of veg recipes featured on Tastespotting. In fact, any time I wanted cooking inspiration I'd go there... 90% of the recipes I've made in the last year, I've found on there first. I loved being able to search, and see the images of the food before looking at the full recipe... Help me, Tastespotting! You're my only hope!

Hello!

Please check out our new site: Foodie Fest at http://foodiefest.tumblr.com

We hope to fill the void left by Tastespotting's absence.

Check us out and spread the news!

Thanks!

Foodgawker.com is taking off, pass the word. They site will still be undergoing construction as things are set up, but it looks like it just might fill the TS void.