SC - Copyright of Recipes

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hi all from Anne-Marie.

Here's something to consider....

last An Tir West war, my student comes bopping up to me all happy and proud
of herself. In her hand she has a publication that she bought from one of
the merchants. That publication was a compilation of information and
recipies taken off the web, verbatum. Cariadocs stuff was in there (I
recognised it by the format...it was taken off verbatim), as was a
collection of emails to mailing lists, etc. 

There were no citations as to source, except for a paragraph at the end
saying that no one had been asked for permission to do this, and giving a
list of names, saying that these were some of the people who had
contributed. Oh yes, and the name of the person who had compiled it
(someone I'd never heard of so it didn't stick in my brain, darn it) was
clearly on the cover.

But wait theres more....included in this tome was information that was
inaccurate and outright wrong (like the bit on cast iron pots in the middle
ages...according to this bit of paper, medieval people cooked in wood and
cast iron.Not a word about tin or copper or ceramic...) Beans were old
world as was allspice. You get the idea.

This publication was being sold for at least double the copying costs.

So, not only was this person making a profit, they didn't cite information
as to its source and were, in my opinion indiscriminate about their
information.

I think that's what bugs me...someone making money off stuff I give away
for free, AND coupling it with inaccurate and misinformation. Makes my
reserach that much less believable, as one cannot separate my recipies from
the generic "they used spiced to cover the taste of rotton meat" tripe.

I should have gotten a copy for myself, and followed up on this, but you
know how it is at big events (and me just off crutches).

So, while we all agree its ok to use our stuff, how do we make sure its
used in an appropriate manner?

- --AM
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================