Recipes and Copyrights

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and this article is not to be construed as legal advice.

Note: This article was written for the new Gather group: Copyright and Fair Use on Gather.

Recipes are an odd fish in the copyright pond. The reason is that the list of ingredients is, usually, non-copyrightable. It's regarded in the same way as a formula. Both an ingredient list and formula can be patented, but not copyrighted because they aren't "expressions" of "ideas" and it's expressions of ideas that are subject to copyright.

However, the directions for a recipe are generally regarded as expressions of an idea and so the directions are subject to copyright. But even in the case of directions, securing copyright may be "iffy" because there are a limited number of ways to express some directions. For example:

"In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and yeast."

"Mix the flour, salt, and yeast in a bowl."

You can add modifiers to create something like:

"In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix the flour, salt, and yeast."

But fundamentally, each of these sentences expresses the same idea. And although expressions may be copyrighted, ideas cannot.

This may sound like good news if you're in the habit of publishing recipes you copied from somewhere else, but it's not. Copyright law is unique in that there are no hard and fast rules. The only way to settle a copyright question is in court on a case-by-case basis. If the suer's pockets are deeper than yours, you're SOL.

If you've spent much time looking up recipes on the Internet you've probably gathered that most recipes are copied and that there's little risk of litigation. But that doesn't alter the fact that such posters are often laying false claim to someone else's efforts. Legal or not, litigated or not, it's wrong to claim credit for something you didn't do.

So what's the solution?

In two words: "Add value."

I publish 3 to 4 recipes a week. I estimate that perhaps 50 percent of them are ideas I come up with completely from scratch. Any resemblance to existing recipes is accidental and a result of 40 years of reading recipes and cooking. I claim full credit for these and all directions are completely of my own devising.

Another 40 percent are amalgams. I'll decide to make, say, a Mocha Mousse and will borrow ideas from a dozen or more sources in developing a recipe that I still feel confident in asserting is my own. However, if some single recipe forms the basis, I will state my recipe is, "Based on a recipe by …" and provide the credit.

In both of the above cases, the directions are still of my own devising, and in the second case I'm just giving credit where credit is due.

The last ten percent are recipes I really have copied. In the case of recipes from cookbooks and magazines I still take care to write my own directions for preparing the dish and I state the recipe is, "Adapted from…" (or similar words) and provide the credit. If the recipe is already available online, I don't copy the recipe myself, but instead provide a link to it.

However, I think the most important thing I do is add context to a recipe. This context is my "added value," my expression. Those of you who have seen my posts here on Gather know that each recipe is preceded by three to six or more paragraphs telling a story about the recipe. I may talk about a personal experience, I may talk about the country the recipe originated in, I may talk about the history of recipe, but in each case I contribute something new. In doing so I mark even a link as something I have a claim to.

If all you do is provide a single paragraph describing how the dish tastes, or how you found it, or why your kids love it, then you've taken a bare list of ingredients and instructions and made them partially your own.

And please, give credit where credit's due.