[Sca-librarians] copyright on recipe

[Greg Lindahl]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 12:49:46PM -0700, Jackie Wyatt wrote:

> Yes, copying the redaction or any additional writing regarding the
> recipe and not properly citing/licensing the use is breaking copyright
> law.

The part of the redaction consisting of a list of ingredients is not
copyrightable, same as with a recipe. Citing has nothing to do with
copyright law.

> I do know that there are extra issues should you want to use images
> of, say, a painting from a museum, but I believe it's a separate
> issue altogether.

It *is* a separate issue, but Bridgeman vs. Corel says no new
copyright is created for a photograph of a flat object. This is
another commonly misunderstood situation, and it's common for museums
to try to claim copyright in this situation. This might be "misuse of
copyright":

http://digital-law-online.info/lpdi1.0/treatise15.html

I care about this because I publish a bunch of facsimiles online,
several of which incorrectly had a copyright attached to them. The SCA
Inc probably doesn't want to touch this issue with a 10' pole, but
there you have it.

-- Gregory