Euan Adie, on his Nature Network blog FnL, posts about Shelley Batts’ Retrospectacle review of a paper about treating fruit with natural volatile compounds to make it last longer, in which she included a figure and chart from the paper (the source was cited). An editorial assistant at the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture – where the paper was published – threatened her with legal action unless she removed the images immediately. The blogosphere reacted with predictable speed and free-expresssion, documented in Euan’s FnL post.

Euan goes on to ask whether the reaction is, in the cold light of a couple of days later, reasonable, looking at the incident both from the point of view of the publisher concerned as well as the blogger. As he puts it: “Storm in a teacup or dark conspiracy?” There is a good debate in the comments to the FnL post, so if you are interested in weighing up these pros and cons, and would like to add your take, please take a look.