In addition to the other problems with this (pointed out already by others), copyright isn’t something you do. Once a creative work is made, no action on anybody’s part is necessary for that work to be protected by copyright.
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Indeed, the rambling story part of the recipe is often the only part that clearly is protected by copyright.
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Step 1: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
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“Copyrightable” sure is a useful shorthand, though. (Not to mention calling back to the time when action was required to secure a copyright. Which, ok, maybe only adds to the confusion.)
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content creators criticised the platform for breaching copyright
My understanding was that recipes themselves are not copyrightable. Their presentation on a website may be, as a ‘publication’ but recipes are not able to be copyrighted.
https://www.cla.co.uk/blog/higher-education/copyright-recipes
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I’d say that both computer programs and recipes are procedures for accomplishing utilitarian ends, but that actual writing of the procedures is, or can be, creative work and thus copyrightable.
Which is why copyright doesn’t (or didn’t, in the pre-software patent days) hold for reverse-engineered clones - they don’t include the copyrighted element - the code as written. Kind of in the same way I could write a story that completes the same utilitarian function as Star Wars, or whatever - it entertains you for two hours and makes you feel like you’re visiting another world, or whatever - but it’s not infringement as long as I don’t actually use specific textual or labelled plot elements from Star Wars.
(Now if I could patent “Visual story that entertains for approximately two hours while creating the impression of a fictional world apart from our own”, the same way companies can define over-broad ‘utilitarian’ software patents, I’d be able to make BANK.)
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I was told at a food writing seminar that recipes in a cookbook are protected by the book’s copyright, and in order to not be sued you have to change both ingredient(s) and process(es), although a substantial change in just one would probably do it.
IANAL of course, but I’ve seen a lot of recipe blogs that tell you (if you read the forever-scroll of story) that they basically just stole this recipe from wherever, but removed or added an ingredient for their family’s taste. That sounds like copyright infringement to me, but apparently it’s attribution so it’s ok.
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Great marketing pitch.
The examples they used while promoting it were things like Serious Eats.
A professional publications where long technique or history articles, often not including recipes at all, are the point. And where recipes are always broken out on their own URL with no longer than a paragraph or two of intro.
While the chief offenders on the long, meaningless preamble front are highly SEOed, personal lifestyle blogs. And even more SEOed, catchall sites that also scrape most of their content from elsewhere.
And yet this site seemed to be exclusively focused on professional food writing and major publications.
This tends to be all you run into when you just Google for a recipe. The life style blogs and content mills just crowd everything else out. Along with the ads and fake review sites.
Practically the same thing happens on any subject. And the recipes found this way are garbage, especially anything baking related. I routinely warn family members off it.
You gotta find a couple sources you like that publish recipes that actually work and stick to them.
Recipes aren’t copyrightable. But the text of a recipe is. Even down to an ingredients list. Though those are limited enough in format that they aren’t diagnostic on their own.
So it’s perfectly legal (and perfectly normal) to publish some one else’s recipe. But you have to rewrite it, and it’s good practice to attribute if not tweak the recipe itself.
Dollars to doughnuts these people ran with the assumption that if they didn’t scrape any of the non-recipe parts they were in the clear.
And a big part of why they’re shutting down now is that after the backlash a lawyer told them they had to pay some one to at a minimum re-write the instruction list.
I did freelance work for a startup with a similarish idea for a while. It was an app, and the idea was less “we cut out the bullshit” than “we curated the good ones” along with some recommendation and shopping list features. We got permission, were heavy on attribution, link throughs and partnered with the writers and publications for marketing and promotions.
And my job still involved re-writing everything when adding it to the system.
It was expensive and time consuming.
I suspect this is also how The Spruce and The Kitchn work as well. Though they seem to have staff that are tasked with assembling their wall of text “guides”, product recommendations and rewriting recipes and what have.
I’ve definitely spotted material on there that was both dangerously bad, and near word for word cribbed from places like instructibles and wikihow.
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The expression is protected by copyright, even the order or organization of the recipes may also be protected by copyright, but neither the ingredients nor the processes are. I think the instructor may have been presenting advice that can save you from legal hassles since you can be sued for copyright infringement even if you didn’t infringe on any copyrightable elements in the work. That or the instructor was either a wishful copyright maximalist, or misinformed? Dunno.
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BBC food, absolutely tons of no bullshit recipes, just skip the ready steady cook ones
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Although i seem to remember the site is so good they have to stop doing it because it’s too hard to compete against
Most non-Murdoch British and Irish newspapers as well. The Guardian in particular has an excellent food section.
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. –copyright.gov (emphasis added)
So there’s some wiggle room. My guess is the paragraphs of life story that were being scraped out were put there not just to create more advertising space, but to ensure a basis for copyright claims.
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Are any of the ads for
“I beg Americans to throw this vegetable out right now!”
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In my experience, 80% of the recipes online are trivial modifications of recipes in the books @NashRambler lists (+ Fannie Farmer).
Wrapping your recipe around a story is a long tradition (cf Brillat-Savarin). I don’t understand what the objection is, as long as the recipe itself is all there. My biggest peeve with recipes is when you can’t work out the ingredients easily without a close reading of the text. (Next biggest: mixing units of measurement. If you measure your turmeric in grams, don’t measure your salt in teaspoons. Or, worse, pinches. And I often get caught by tbsp vs. tspn).
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There are browser extensions that do essentially the same thing by hiding elements on the host website. I have one called “Recipe Filter”. Given that solution already exists I really don’t see the need for a 3rd party site to do this.
Every pancake tuesday I question the following recipe. Is it a pint of water and a pint of milk, mixed? Or a pint of a mixture of water and milk? And every year I forget to write down the correct answer.
Great pancakes though.
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Baking is chemistry. Can chemical formulae be copyrightten.
I take it you don’t live in Britain. Lard is not hard to find even in the effete mythic region known as ‘Dahn Sath’. Nor is sawdust. Eye of newt, I’ll grant you if only because I can never remember what it actually is.
Now where did I leave my cauldron, I have a few foundlings to make gruel out of for. I meant for!
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I know where to get plenty of eye of newt, but if I tried to get some I would have the RSPCA and the ALF trying to knock down my front door.
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