Of Cookbooks and Recipe Theft

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Today's Washington Post carries a particularly interesting story about intellectual property, given our attention yesterday to the blogging of food images, namely the theft of recipes in cookbooks. In a special article entitled "Can a Recipe Be Stolen?," by former San Jose Mercury News Food Editor Joyce Gemperlein, who is married to Jonathan Krim, now of th Post-Newsweek group, formerly of TheStreet.com. The article recounts the experience of teenage girlscouts in the Washington, DC, area, who were collecting recipes last summer for a cookbook to benefit cancer research. 'Twas the Toll House cookie recipe that made the youngsters realize that if the recipe was already online, perhaps it was also copyrighted. Further issues arose, such as whether they could publish tweaked versions of published recipes. The article raises the question of whether copyrighting stifles creativity, and it provides some guidelines regarding the reprinting of copyrighted recipes, including IACP and eGullet takes on "tweaking" and some candid input from Nora Pouillon. (Click here to read full article.) Superchefblog highly recommends this article for those food bloggers who print (or reprint) recipes -- that's a lot of blogs. Of course, the basis of copyrighting is protecting the income generated by creativity. Determining the income lost by copyright infringement of one recipe is pretty tough. While this article focused on text-based recipes, Information Technology has already propelled recipes themselves deep onto the Web, courtesy of some current heavy hitters like Emeril Lagasse and Epicurious.com, and even onward into becoming a subset of video demonstrations in the UK, courtesy of Jamie Oliver and Vodafone (see previous articles, listed below). The action, then, may come from hard-copy cookbook publishers, just as the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) have led charges against online video and music swapping. Don't lose too much sweat over recipies, though: there just isn't as much money in cookbooks as there is in Film and Music, as any cookbook publisher will tell you, even if your name is Julia Child. Previous articles: Reflections on Images Jamie Oliver on Vodafone Live! Emeril Lagasse: iPod ReciPods One "Epi To Go," Please! Emeril Lagasse Lays Apple iPod Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, ethics, copyright, recipes, cookbooks, publishing, food blogging --> back to superchefblog