Use caution with recipes and copyright, you could get singed!
Recipes and copyright: those words crop up occasionally, usually when someone posts a recipe that was inspired by a book, magazine, T.V. show, or another blog.
If you make a search on Google using the words, “my recipe copyright,” you will be greeted with no more than 20 million entries on this thorny subject. A lot of posts indicate the law states such and such, and there is no other way around it.
The internet is full of “helpful” advice. If you are really worried, then the best advice I can give you is to consult a lawyer that deals in copyright law.
Now, how does this relate to Recipe Standardization? You will need to know some guidelines if you ever plan to post these recipes. My advice? Read on.
Laws differ from country to country, however the main one on focus is the United States of America. A great resource on this topic is their FAQ Site, which specifically spells out the recipe/copyright question:
How do I protect my recipe?
A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. Note that if you have secret ingredients to a recipe that you do not wish to be revealed, you should not submit your recipe for registration, because applications and deposit copies are public records. See FL 122, Recipes.
A recipe consists of a list of ingredients, with instructions on what to do with the ingredients. The list itself cannot be copyrighted, but the expression of the instructions can. Also, if you take a whole cookbook and copy it, there could be an issue, as indicated in the text.
I see this a lot in blogs and such. People are horrified to find “their” recipe for something like mac and cheese in circulation somewhere. Then they lay claim to the ingredients lists.
People, please.
The text in the header is yours. You know, the blurb. The title? Not so. The list of ingredients? Unless you can prove literary differences, not so.
If a person takes “your” list of ingredients and places their own directions on how to create it, are they cheating you? I don’t think so. In fact, one could say that unless you can prove that you are the one that originally created silk blueberry tarts, then you are guilty of infringement with the above logic. What of the actual person who invented them?
Pictures are copyrighted, end of story. If you find your picture in a magazine without your permission, then you should be all over it.
Let’s get back to the issue of recipes though. In the end, it is up to you, the reader, to decide what is morally right or wrong. One knows internally when they are doing something wrong.
You just copy and paste a list of ingredients, then change the words a little in the instructions. You are walking a fine line between scum and plagiarizer. At the very least you should attribute the recipe to the creator.
If you grab a recipe online, test it in your kitchen, put your own touch to it, then write out the ingredients, header, instructions, all points in your own tongue? As far as fairness goes, you have all rights to that recipe. You *could* choose to attribute that recipe to someone else, but really, you don’t have to. You have done the work to make the recipe your own, so call it your own. Use your own pictures, and write your own text.
If anyone would argue these points, then please comment below and explain why.
What do you all think on this topic?
This post is part of the Recipes and Standardization in the Professional Kitchen Theme.
Resources to Standardize Your Recipes
Ways to Implement a Recipe Standardization Strategy.
Tricks of the Trade: Nailing Down a Recipe and How to Enforce It’s Use
Cookbook Review of Recipe Writer’s Handbook
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice write up Jason. I like to think of it like a Math equation.
You can’t copyright 2+2=4. But if you were to write a two page proof in your own words expressing WHY 2+2=4 then you could in fact copyright that expression. At least I think so…
At the end of the day though 2+2 always equals 4.
To bring that into the food world, macaroni and cheese is always macaroni + cheese. Even if you combine them in novel amounts, someone else can do the same.
A cookbook or some other “work” is a different beast though because it has substantial creative writing/instruction
@Nick – You are absolutely correct. I do not believe that you can copyright a math expression, (It would seem silly to suggest you could…) but the expression or explanation is your own work, and is copyrighted at the moment of conception.
As for how this translates into the food world, a simple list of ingredients is enough in the hands of a professional to work with. A lot of times you will not even see directions on how to manipulate the ingredients. An example of that is my Pastry Chef. She has her ingredients in a list, and that is it.
Skill is what separates a chef or avid cook from Betty Crocker.
To go to this further, I once read a post on a blog through my reader where the blogger swore up and down that a famous magazine had “stolen” her recipe, but altered her words to make it their own.
This post is here for that exact reason. The blogger went on a misguided “crusade” against the magazine. While she may have gotten good Google awareness, she is still a crackpot if she believes that her list of ingredients is actually “hers”.
I am suggesting that unless she is the one that invented the “tart” that she made, she is actually plagiarizing by her own logic.
Copying and pasting a recipe and changing a few words on the description make you an asshole, not a copyright infringer.
Now, I may get inspiration from a recipe (Like your Black Pepper Biscuits), and I link it back. If I had changed some of the ingredients of the recipe, (like to make blue cheese biscuits for example) I think that it is courtesy to link back, but I do not HAVE to.
I hope that makes sense.