Mixingbowl Family and Friends,

There are so many recipes posted here everyday, that I thought it would be a good idea to know where we all stand legally, when we post a recipe. The information I'm posting as part of this discussion was taken from Recipezaar, which is a site I have used many times to research new recipes. The information is below:

008: Recipes and Copyright

Copyright protects creative works (written or artistic). Though we think of cooking as art, that does not make a recipe copyrightable.

"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."
— The Copyright Office of the US Government

A list of ingredients cannot be copyrighted. An idea, concept, system or method of doing something cannot be copyrighted either. Only the substantially literary expression associated with a recipe can be copyrighted. To the extent there are only so many ways to say "boil water" it is not creative, or therefore protected as copyright. If the recipe directions or description are a wholesale copy of another person's creative literary expression, they are in violation of copyright. So, even if the recipe originated elsewhere, and even if the ingredients are still the same, if the directions and description of your posted recipe are in your own words, it is your recipe. My Note Here....In Your Own Words....

Keep reading for more information.

What is copyright?

Copyright is a "branch of law granting authors the exclusive privilege to reproduce, distribute, perform, or display their creative works. The goal of copyright law is to encourage authors to invest effort in creating new works of art and literature. ...Not every product of the human imagination is eligible for copyright. To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be both fixed and original. The law considers a work to be fixed if it is recorded in some permanent format. ...To be original, the work must not be copied from previously existing material and must display at least a reasonable amount of creativity. For example, if an author writes the words "the sky is blue" on a piece of paper, copyright does not protect the words because they lack sufficient creativity. ...Copyright only protects the words, notes, or images that the creator has used. It does not protect any ideas or concepts revealed by the work. If, for example, a scientist publishes an article explaining a new process for refining oil, the copyright prevents others from copying the words of that article. It does not, however, prevent anyone else from using the process described to refine oil. To protect the process, the scientist must obtain a patent.
--Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia

In other words, Copyright is intended to protect artwork, not techniques like recipes. Copyright protects your fiction and expression, it doesn't protect ideas or methods. You have to get a patent to protect those. Furthermore copyright only protects truly creative works, works of fiction, essays, musical compositions, etc..

So the literary expression in the form of directions or description might be protected, if it can be proven to be truly creative. In other words, a lasagna recipe with 3 basic steps (cook the noodles, make the sauce, and bake for an hour) is not copyrightable — no matter how tasty — because it is obvious, not creative. Or a collection of recipes into the unique presentation of a cookbook is copyrightable due to the choice of the collection and it's arrangement, not the individual recipes themselves. For more information, download the US Government PDF on Copyright of Recipes

Where does Recipezaar stand? A list of ingredients is a list of ingredients, the government doesn't care and neither do we. But when it comes to other people's description and directions don't copy the flowery stuff, put it in your own words. You probably made the recipe, and you probably did it slightly different than the original directions anyway Describe what you did. If you copy the literary work of someone else, post it on Recipezaar, and they notify us with proof of the violation, we will immediately remove your recipe and you could be liable for damages. If someone else copies your recipes from our site, and uses them as their own, we would want to protect your original work and demand they be removed. So, don't copy. However, we encourage our users to try recipes from other places, and post them to Recipezaar in their own words. We don't mind if you include information about where you got the recipe from, as long as the description and directions are in your own words.

Whenever I see a recipe that interests me, I always put my spin on it, and change the ingredients. I cannot leave a recipe alone to save my life. Any recipe that I have posted as my own, the directions are always in my own words, because I write for people who may have never cooked anything in their lives.. There is no implied knowledge. This is something that I see as the failure of a lot of cookbooks and recipe websites. They assume you have knowledge about cooking techniques that you may not have in your arsenal.

For example, most baking recipes that require the use of butter will say that it should be at "Room Temperature". That depends on the room, doesn't it? Actually, the butter can be cool to the touch, but it should be bendable. Some new bakers have experienced failure because the butter was almost liquid because the room was too warm.

I would advise you to download the US PDF on Copyright of Recipes within this post.

Toni

In: Killer Apps

Copyright Issues Regarding Food Recipes..Things You Need To know

008: Recipes and Copyright

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