RECIPE FOR A LAWSUIT
Blogger vows to fight Bines in court
A Brisbane blogger has vowed to take her plagiarism claim against Gold Coast fitness guru Ashy Bines to court.
A BRISBANE mother has vowed to pursue fitness guru Ashy Bines in court after the Gold Coaster denied copying her recipes.
Mother and food bogger Allie Dodds alleges Ms Bines used at least five of her recipes for a clean eating e-book that was produced several years ago.
In her pursuit for compensation, Ms Dodds used crowd-funding to raise the capital to engage a lawyer to tackle Ms Bines over the alleged word-for-word use of her recipes as well as accompanying photos.
Ms Bines’s legal team, DSS Law, responded in October and denied all breaches, said Ms Dodds.
“I do intend to take the matter further,” Ms Dodds said.
The 26-year-old said she would have to return to crowd-funding in the hope of raising enough money to engage a lawyer for the next step in her legal fight against Ms Bines.
“There are more proceedings and I have to lodge documents with the court,” she said.
“I don’t have the backing she has … and I am just an everyday, average person going up against a big company.
“I used the funds I originally raised and now the next step is going to be in the vicinity of $5000, possibly more, to lodge the documents with the court and engage a lawyer to do further work.”
Ms Dodds said she originally posted her healthy recipes in 2012 on her food blog, Mealspiration, and alleges Ms Bines never asked permission to reproduce the recipes or the photos.
Her meals included salmon and cauliflower sushi, kangaroo rolls and chicken mince quiche.
Ms Dodds said she still publishes recipes but under Mama Nourish.
In response to allegations her e-book did not contain original recipes, Ms Bines posted a video explaining that she outsourced the work to another person but did not mention which recipes she was referring to.
“As a business woman, I often outsource projects to experts and people better qualified to give you the best information,” Ms Bines told her legion of fans.
“Unfortunately, I may have been too naive to think that I wouldn’t have to check the origins of each recipe.
“It’s recently come to my attention that some of these recipes were not originals at all, and have been copied from other sources. This was never my intention and it really sucks that these things can happen.”
Ms Bines said she was currently working on another ebook with a chef.
She has been contacted for comment on the legal claims.