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In a modern-day David vs Goliath tale, a Utah food blogger is suing Food Network for copyright infringement, claiming the cable television giant wrongfully used elements of her original how-to video for making Snow Globe Cupcakes.
Elizabeth LaBau, a pastry chef, cookbook author and creator of the popular dessert blog SugarHero, lives in Sandy, but does business in Los Angeles, according to a suit filed in U.S. District Court for Central District of California.
An expert in the dessert field, LaBau is the author of "The Sweet Book of Candy" and has been About.com's candy expert for more than a decade. SugarHero receives between 300,000 and 500,000 page views each month and LaBau relies on the site's advertising revenue as her sole income source.
The snow-globe cupcakes have been LaBau's signature recipe since she first published it on her website in December 2014. Her original recipe involved using gelatin sheets, an uncommon ingredient, and small water balloons to create edible "globes" to place on holiday cupcakes.
After her initial post went viral, LaBau decided to "create a short Facebook-style video showing how the cupcakes are made, with the goal of driving traffic to her site for the actual recipes," the suit states.
The video reached more than 15.9 million people through Facebook likes, shares and comments, according to the suit.
Three weeks after posting her video, LaBau became aware of a similar video on Food Network's Facebook page, also illustrating the preparation of snow-globe cupcakes. That video copied "numerous copyrightable elements of Plaintiff's work precisely," the complaint states, including camera angles, colors and lighting, textual descriptors and other artist and expressive elements.
LaBau made a number of attempts to get the television channel to take down the video or attribute the original idea to SugarHero. When the cable company failed to respond, she hired a California attorney and took legal action, citing a loss of advertising revenue.
Since it was posted, the Food Network video has "garnered 145,000 likes and more than 11 million views, business and attention that would have gone to Plaintiff and her business but for Defendant's wrongful acts," the complaint states.
LaBau is requesting a jury trial and is seeking damages suffered as a result of the copyright infringement and any profits the Food Network made at her expense.