I think I’m pretty competent in the kitchen. I cook “from scratch” dinners for my family 99% of the time; I love to cook, I love to try out and tinker with new recipes. Yet I blog about cooking fairly seldom, and the reason is I worry about copyright issues.
I have a recipe box full of dozens of handprinted index cards, many of which I wrote down so many years ago that I no longer remember where I got them from. Others were handed down to me by a friend or family member, but again I don’t really know where they originated. Take for example one of my hubby’s favourite dishes, my mother-in-laws iconic meatloaf. I have the recipe carefully copied down and labelled as “Dianne’s Meatloaf”. But the truth is I don’t know what cookbook it might have been taken out of, or where she originally got the recipe from. Can I blog about my mother-in-law’s meatloaf? Can I share the recipe not knowing where it originated? As much as I’d love to share this and other family favourites with my readers, I worry about the legal ramifications and so have passed on posting.
However, I happened to run into an article discussing how recipes are not covered under copyright and I started wondering. Wondering what the rules are in Canada. Wondering if I could be sharing recipes on my website after all. I started searching around on Google and reading up on it, but it’s all a bit complex and murky, particularly when it comes to Canadian Copyright law.
According to the US Copyright office:
“A mere listing of ingredients is not protected under copyright law. However, where a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a collection of recipes as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection. ”
Under US law a method or formula can not be copyrighted. So basically the concept or idea of the recipe can’t be protected under copyright, but the words used to express that idea can. Thus I can share the list of ingredients from a recipe, but shouldn’t copy the directions or flavour text. From everything I’ve read it sounds like you’re in the clear if you create a similar recipe using your own words.
But that’s for the US. What about Canadian copyright law? Much like under US law, ideas and facts are not copyrightable but literary works are. So here’s the question: is a recipe an idea, or is it an artistic creation? Where does it fall under Canadian copyright law? I’ve scoured through the Canadian Intellectual Property Office website, reading page after page of dull legalese, and I can’t find any solid answer.
Strictly from an ethical stance, I am strongly against content theft and would never consider, for example, cutting and pasting a recipe from another website. However I find myself thinking again about those old cards in my recipe box, and well the line is a little less clear.
What are your thoughts? Is posting a recipe to a blog acceptable? I see people doing it all the time. Is it that they just don’t care about copyright issues? Or is it that they understand the copyright law better than I do? What about if a recipe is taken directly from a cookbook, or from another website? What if attribution is given? What if attribution isn’t given? Where is the line?
What does a little creator do when big companies just steal new ways to cook. Buzzfeed just steals from small creators. Traffic goes there way…
There’s not much we can do, aside from boycott that places that we notice are stealing other people’s content. Most small-time creators don’t have the resource to retain a lawyer and go after someone for content theft. However, you always send a cease and desist letter, asking them to remove your copyright content. You can Google up some good templates you can use to draft that letter. Good luck.
I think that you should go for it! Especially since all the narration and colour is bound to be in your own words! So definitely and new creative expression. Hey, I’m no lawyer but it sure seems to me like you’d be in the clear. And the world will be a better place!
I find it very confusing. If I put together a recipe book and sell it as a means of making a living, and some people buy it and then end up posting some of the recipes online, even if they attribute them to me and name the book, the people that see those recipes don’t need to buy the book because they got them for free online.
This is partly why so many recipe bloggers had lots of ads. It seems almost pointless to try to make money from a book if others are just going to share it for free . Why bother?
I always assumed if it was in print firm, it’s copyrighted. Like people shouldn’t be copying the recipe word for word or taking a photo of the recipe page and then posting it for others to see. Millions of people suddenly have access to each recipe posted, but maybe only 100 people bought the book.
I think that is also why so many books are trying to post tons of photos within their work, not just beside the recipe or on opposite page. Photographs are def something you need to be careful sharing so if someone puts out a book where there are photos mixed in with the ingredients and instructions, that might help. Taking a pic of the recipe will be hard to do without getting a bit of the photographs in there too and most people probably won’t sit and type out the entire recipe.
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I choose to post a photo of my own creation and then list the book it hot it from and/or name of author. If someone wants the recipe so bad, they can google for it.
Sorry for typos haha