[Sca-librarians] copyright on recipe

[Johnna Holloway]

The list of ingredients is not perhaps copyrightable, but
if you copy the title and reproduce a list of ingredients intact without 
changes,
that falls under plagiarism (rights and permissions) and you can get 
sued for that.
(Look up the Martha Stewart Barbara Tropp recipe scandal of
the 1980's and the Richard Nelson affair. Or see 2006's article "Can a 
Recipe be stolen?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300316.html 
)

The paragraph or so that follows the list of ingredients can be seen as 
being
a unique expression. Many authors make this part of the recipe uniquely
distinctive and copying that in full and publishing it would violate 
copyright.
(And almost all historical recipes of any note that have been adapted 
contain
this material. This is what makes these adaptations worthwhile.Would 
Martha Washington's
Cookery Bookes be so valuable without Karen Hess' commentary?)

And if not copyright, then it's a case of plagiarism, should that recipe 
be reproduced
without permission. It's also a matter of manners and ethics.
(Do I want my recipes to be reproduced without my permission? Do I want my
needlepoint patterns reproduced or my original music spread across the 
web without
permission? What about original art or drawings?)

In any case the last thing the SCA wants is to be accused of plagiarism 
or copyright violations which
is why publications are going to be urged to tighten up as regards recipes.

Johnnae llyn Lewis




Solveig Throndardottir wrote:
> Noble Cousin!
>
> Greetings from Solveig!
>
>> This is not quite true. The text of a recipe is original work
>> and that can be copyrighted.
>> "when a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary 
>> expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is 
>> a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for 
>> copyright protection."
>> http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html
>
> Please reread what you quoted. A simple list of ingredients and 
> instructions for cooking a dish is not the same thing as "accompanied 
> by substantial literary expression". If you want to have stuff that is 
> copyrightable, you need to include things such as the historical 
> development of the dish in question, your analysis, references to 
> archeological, iconographic, or literary evidence, descriptions of the 
> social context of the dish, &c. that sort of stuff. Basically, you 
> need to build a bit of a story around the recipe itself. However, you 
> can argue that an entire cookbook of non-copyrightable recipes could 
> itself by its selection and assembly be copyrightable. 
>
> Your Humble Servant
> Solveig Throndardottir
> Amateur Scholar
>
>
>
>
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