[Sca-cooks] menu copyright?

[Robyn.Hodgkin at affa.gov.au]

I think we are looking at a few different issues here.

Copying of:

1. a menu alone

2. original recipes / translations

3. redactions

In the case of 1. I would have to ask, are you kidding?  A restaurant lists it's set menu for the day: entree of country pork pate, roast lamb of the day with vegetables, and chocolate mousse for dessert.  Should they have intellectual copyright over that list?

If you have translated an original recipe from say 14th century french then you have copyright over that translation.  The original recipe is out of copyright. However if it has been reprinted then THAT reprinting is copyrighted (ie you can't photocopy more than X percentage of the book etc). Just like music; "Jesu joy of man's desiring" as a piece of music is well and truly out of copyright. But a particular arrangement or publication of it is protected by copyright.

However, recipe copyright isn't as clear as with most other things.  There is a fascinating thread of discussion on this subject in particular on the Coalition for Networked Information forum on their copyright discussion list.  It is worth having a look; the discussion seems to be between various lawyers.

http://www.cni.org/Hforums/cni-copyright/1995-04/0598.html

One of them points out: "If the recipe is copyrightable then putting it on the Web page would
be reproduction and authorising reproduction. I think you could only perform a recipe by making it in public. I think there is a strong argument for an implied licence to make the recipe (otherwise why publish) but whether or not it extends to doing so in public might be debatable." Tim Arnold-Moore, LL.B. (Melb)

So if you follow that concept, then posting your recipe or menu on the web, or indeed on a list such as this, would be authorising reproduction.