Quote:
Originally Posted by lilac_jive
Hooray! Glad to hear it!
For all of you who want this recipe, I googled it and this page came up! That was fast. If I get off my lazy butt I'll just take it from the recipe book.
Or is that copyright?
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(I am not part of the legions of undead lawyers that my Montsnmags Enterprises retain, nor have I consulted them, but...)
...I don't believe you can copyright a recipe (in general, I believe in most locations). Or, to be more precise, I think you
can't copyright lists of ingredients and methods, though you can copyright the actual, original presentation of them. Scanning a recipe from a book and re-posting it, let's say, here, would generally be a no-no, as likely would be verbatim reproduction (assuming the recipe could be construed as an "original literary work". Something like "Boil water. Add egg. Remove after two minutes" would likely struggle for "original literary work" status.
) Re-presenting a recipe in your own words/pictures here would not be infringing. Posting some telly-chef's cooking book to MR in ebook form would, of course, be infringing (at least according to MR's regional hosting requirements).
Basically: the written/performed form of a recipe is usually covered by copyright, but the method/list of ingredients of the recipe itself aren't. This is why some major food suppliers (eg. Coca Cola) are so secretive about their recipes, and are sometimes seen to address the matter of potential revelation (usually via an employee's attempts to sell the secret) through "trade secrets" legislation rather than copyright.
This is in very simple terms, of which there are, no doubt, many idiosyncrasies and details and exceptions and conditional riders and regional differences, as per usual copyright detail, but I'm sure you get the gist, and, if not, you'll find googling "copyright" and "recipes" should help you out.
Cheers,
Marc