[Ansteorra] A Storm is Brewing

[Tim McDaniel]

On Fri, 5 Nov 2010, rose_welch at yahoo.com wrote:
> I have to say that recipes themselves cannot be copyrighted, and if
> the wording was substantially changed, then it was most certainly
> not copyright infringement.

I did a Google search for
     copyright recipe

The first hit is from the US Copyright Office, at
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

"Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of
ingredients.  Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients
such as those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions.
Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary
expression -- a description, explanation, or illustration, for example
-- that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of
recipes, as in a cookbook.

"Only original works of authorship are protected by copyright.
'Original' means that an author produced a work by his or her own
intellectual effort instead of copying it from an existing work."

However, derivative works are a violation of copyright.  Changing the
wording of something copyrighted *is* copyright violation.

The third hit was
http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/copyright/copyright-realworld/recipe-copyrighting.html
which discusses the whole issue, saying that there are unclear
issues.

Danielis de Lindo Colonia
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com