The Badge Archive

Hi everyone! You may have noticed some changes to our recent “Cookie Copyright” article. If you also follow Dottie’s Facebook group, you likely saw a post calling us out. We want to clear the air about what happened and the lesson we learned from it.

The Intent: A Leader PSA This article started as a personal project for Ms. Tia. While we have all been working hard on our massive Festival of Nations project, Ms. Tia wanted to take a break. She decided to create a simple Public Service Announcement.

Her goal was purely educational: to help new leaders find free cookie resources and to explain the tricky copyright rules surrounding official baker images. She wasn’t looking to promote The Badge Archive. She just wanted to provide a “one-stop shop” for leaders to find the great tools that have already been listed on our Youth Activity Archive for days. It was meant to be a pleasant break from her more intense research. This was a way to share what she has learned.

The Misunderstanding Ms. Tia chose to highlight some third-party work because she genuinely liked the resources. Based on the creator’s posts in her private Facebook Group inviting others to share images and tag her page so people could find her group, Ms. Tia believed that giving full credit and direct links back to the source was exactly what was requested.

Unfortunately, it backfired. We learned on January 30th that the creator requires total exclusivity to protect commissions earned from social media interactions. While we are volunteers checking email once a day, Dottie sent a request for removal and (without waiting for a reply) asked her 4,000 followers to bombard us likewise until it was removed. We happened to check our email just an hour later and took immediate action.

The Communication Breakdown: A private message was sent to Ms. Tia on Facebook, but a technical glitch prevented her from hitting the “Accept” button to reply. We were only able to see a preview expressing frustration that we had not sought individual permission before sharing the resources.

To be honest, we curate thousands of links. We meticulously read every “Rules” and “About” section, but we simply don’t have the capacity to have personal conversations with every creator.

In Dottie’s case, we didn’t just drop a link. We went out of our way to provide credit and a second direct link to her Facebook Group so leaders could find and support her. She has a robust collection of resources, and we chose to highlight a few specifically because we liked them and assumed our followers would too. We expected that, like us, when a leader finds a resource they love, they go to the source to find more.

If you are comfortable with her specific monetization model, she does have good resources, and we would never tell you not to use them.

Moving Forward: We have voluntarily left Dottie’s group and consider the matter settled. We have no hard feelings. There are many ways to monetize scouting work, including our own! We are currently finishing the Festival of Nations Kits, which cost us nearly $3,000 in research, graphics, and video production to create. While they should be $10 each, we’ve decided to offer them for $2.50 to keep them accessible. Of course, we always provide a free DIY version as well. That’s just our personal creed.

We applaud successful sellers in the scout community! However, we do draw a personal line at linking to resources that monetize copyrighted imagery (like the specific cookie photos). In our own templates, we use unique images to represent flavors but also provide a free Canva template for you to “snap in” the official baker images for your own individual troop use, following the baker’s specific terms of service.

We still link to documents that feature official images, provided they are not monetized and were created by a council or leader following the Baker’s Terms of Use.

Ms. Tia is back to focusing on the Festival of Nations research now! Lesson learned: sometimes even the most well-intentioned PSA can be misunderstood. We’ll stick to our own custom-made content and “copyright-clean” links moving forward.

Thanks for sticking with us! — The Badge Archive Team

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For More Fun Ideas and Plans

Join the Girl Scout Daisy, Brownie, and Junior Leader Help Facebook Group
_{(Not an official GSUSA Group)}

Join the Girl Scout Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador Leader Help Facebook Group
_{(Not an official GSUSA Group)}

See other Recommended Facebook Groups for some Scouting Organizations
_{(No official Groups)}

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