copyright and recipes

[MelissaNott]

Hi there,

Someone just made a public request for "your favorite pumpkin cheese muffin recipe". I have a question about copyright and recipes. All recipes are either invented, or they come from someone else . . . but sometimes you don't know who that "someone else" is, because recipes get passed around. Isn't it dangerous to submit a recipe and call it your own under these circumstances? What if I thought a recipe was original, but it actually came from Rachel Ray? I was interested in this assignment, but to me it seems too dangerous to try it.

What do you think?

Thanks,
Missy

[MelissaNott]

I just read the thread about the banned client. I guess I won't worry anymore about the pumpkin cream cheese muffin article. Except now I'm hungry. Ahhhhhh . . . muffins!

[Celeste Stewart]

It would still be good to know about recipe writing. I've heard that "lists" (such as lists of ingredients) can't be copyrighted but I don't think that means we can just take a recipe and change the instructions slightly.

[nicolane]

I could be wrong (Insert whatever version you prefer of "I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV")

As I understand from various countries copyright laws, you can't copyright a list of ingredients - but you can copyright the instructions and description.

Hope that helps

[jadedragon]

You can not copyright a recipe ingredient list (maybe you could patent a very unique one, but that would be very rare) but copyright exists for the way the recipe is written up. It becomes "my recipe" because of the words I put around the ingredients, serving suggestions, telling that this is how my grandma made it, etc. Another consideration for us is - can it pass copyscape. To solve these two related problems be sure and:

1. Reorder and rephrase the ingredients (metric to imperial, different names for things)
2. Consider 1/2ing or 2Xing the receipe
3. Consider varying, adding to or deleting from the ingredients. This can be done without even testing if your changes make sense. For example walnuts could replace almonds in a cookie.
4. Give some history of the dish (German housewives invented this bread in the 1300s?) and
5. Make some good serving suggestions that are different than your source

Some additional info on copyright in this post I wrote a while back: http://www.innovativepassiveincome.com/ ... explained/

[jak]

I believe I read somewhere that CC is no longer accepting recipes as articles. Of course, if it is for a public request, that is different. If I'm wrong, can someone please put me right?