Recipe plagiarism?
I have a blog that I have been working on for a while. I have recipes from my mother that have been “passed down” that have no source, I have recipes from friends, cookbooks, and online. All of the recipes I have tried and even have pictures of. The recipes I have found online, I have sited the source and included the link to the website. I have also done the same if it came from a cook book.
I am not charging for these recipes, but I do have google adsense and other affiliate links on my site. I have seen other people do the same with their blogs. Is this plagiarism? I am NOT trying to pass the recipes off as my own.
How do you really commit recipe plagiarism? I am sure there are thousands of stew, chili, cookie, brownie, etc, recipes out there. I am sure at one point someone’s grandmother got a cookie recipe off of a box, added some vanilla and said it was their family secret. I have seen a few sites where it lists the ingredients and directions word for word. Thanks.
Tagged with: plagiarism • Recipe
Filed under: Adsense Secrets
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Several websites that had famous restuarants’ secret recipes have disappeared. I don’t know why but I can guess.
Can I copyright a recipe? – Legal Issues – Ask Entrepreneur
http://www.entrepreneur.com/ask/answer774.html
Can a Recipe Be Stolen? – washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/03/AR2006010300316.html
New Era of the Recipe Burglar
“But I think serious recipes really are a form of literary craftsmanship. You can copyright the world’s worst photograph, but you can’t copyright a recipe, or its expression as food? That’s absurd!”
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/new-era-of-the-recipe-burglar
it shouldnt be because your saying where you got the recipies from.
I have a recipe web site and have entered a number of recipe contests over the years. As a result I have been concerned about the topic you bring up as well. From my research, the list of ingredients in a recipe would not be protected under copywrite law but the directions for that recipe can be. So, if you write your own spin on how a list of ingredients should be used to make a particular dish you are technically safe from my understanding. Most recipe contests that I have entered require there to be at least 2 changes to an ingredient list for it to be considered a new recipe. That’s the legal stuff. Ethically, if you copy the ingredients for a recipe and the directions are pretty close, I think the source should be cited out of courtesy.
It sounds to me like what you’re doing is just fine. Good Luck with your blog!
Crystal