Ya know.....there are just so many things in the world you can do with a chicken breast....and just because one chef puts apricot jam with his doesn';t mean that another who is dinkin' around in the kitchen and piles on some apricot jam and maybe a bit of ginger is stealing his recipe? Certain things are universal....basil with tomatoes, ginger and apricot jam, etc.
It's not violating a copywrite by posting a variation of a recipe....it's not really the combination of ingredients, but rather thew ay iut's written and presented.
My father made a chicken dish which he dreamed up....I have seen many variations of this same idea ( basically chicken poached in a sweet wine...the wine reduced and thickened and served with the chicken....after it has been browned in butter)those other recipes are not plagerism but rather variations on a universal theme.
As has been said, it is very very hard to prove any violation because a recipe is just "the way I do it".
But polite is giving credit.
Linda C

Linda, I've often had the same thoughts. Many recipes just seem natural and not really original thought. I used to get a chuckle from some of the contributors to Taste of Home. The person who submitted the recipe would add a blurb about how her family would only eat fish the way she prepared it, using her special recipe. Then I'd read the recipe and it was baked fish with butter, lemon juice, & dill weed sprinkled on top. How could that be considered an original recipe? That's a combination (as you indicated) that just seems universal.

Most of the time I wing things when cooking and combine some recipes I've seen somewhere else and my own thoughts about what the ingredients & techniques should be. However, if a recipe is truly unique in ingredients or preparation, I think it should be credited.

Hasn't it been said "there's nothing new under the sun"? So many of these recipes found on the web, and elsewhere, are copies of recipes somewhere else and someone has labeled them as their own. But Linda is right, some cooking is really basic, and just tweaking ingredients or adding ingredients does not give ownership to a recipe, how can anyone trace its heritage? Impossible. Original recipes, if one ever found one, were not copyrighted. Does anyone collect royalties for the wheel?

I agree with all of you!
I think Sharoncb gives a good example on the other thread.
There are so many recipes here that I would never have tried if not recommended "in real time" lol by one of my friends here. So, in my mind the recipe becomes that person's - Annie's onion braid sort of thing.

However, copying a blog - not just the recipe but the writer's experience, photos, and words verbeten is not acceptable.

Meant to add:

In that case the blog should be linked.

A recipe for baked fish with butter, lemon juice, & dill weed is hardly original. But words like "This tastes like a sunny day on the beach at Acapulco" introducing the recipe are very likely original and copying those words or paraphrasing them without attributing them to the source is plagiarism pure and simple.

Recipes and collections of recipes have been copied and published without attribution as long as there have been written recipes. As others have pointed out, it's easy to avoid copyright infringement with a minor tweaking of the ingredients or instructions. I am more troubled by the intellectual dishonesty of presenting the original work of others in a way that it appears to be one's own work.

I have thousands and thousands of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines that were my DGM and a friends DGM and my DM all mixed in with recipes I have clipped over the last 40 years or so... No way could I give credit as there is no credit given on any of them.

When I first started saving recipes from the www I never gave it a thought that I would ever need to know where the recipe came from. If I ever needed to post any of these recipes I would have to call it my own.

I have a habit of using several recipes as reference material for something I want to make, adjusting for personal taste and cooking methods. The finished product is certainly my own creation. I am more than happy to give credit to a source if I know it but that's not always possible.

Another point to consider, and I'm not even sure I can say this correctly, when a recipe is posted on this forum, I save it as that persons recipe, just to make sure I give credit to the forum member that originally posted the recipe. A good example of that might be Sol's Molten Lava Cakes....I have no idea where the recipe came from originally and I don't really care...to me they are Sol's MLC's because she turned me on to them. Here on the forum I think we try to be courteous to each other that way.

Nancy

'zactly Nancy! LOL

I will say where my recipe comes from, if it is attributable to a source like a book, TV show, or of course, someone here. But if it is from a public, anonymous compilation like "allrecipes" or the like, I will just say I got it on the web.

I have seen folks here copy recipes from places and not attribute them at all, and even pass them off as their own idea. I get Sunset magazine and once, a long time ago, someone here posted a recipe from the latest Sunset, without attributing it, and inferring it was their own creation. I guess from the following information, it isn't illegal. But it was unethical, IMO.

From the govt. copyright office:
"Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection. 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 combination of recipes, as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection."

and I found this:

Can a Recipe Be Stolen?

Nancy ... ditto :)

I have read this and the other thread, IMO it is not about a recipe but copying verbatim from someone's personal blog....right ?

I think there is a big difference between using something from someones blog and using their photograph than a site that has dozens of variations of the same recipe.

I felt it was a whole lot more about the photo than the actual recipe.

Thank you, Ohiomom for spelling verbatim correctly. I knew my post didn't look right:)

ROFL Maggie ... lucky guess on my part :)

Gosh, my problem is that the only time I ever follow a recipe is when I'm making a food using ingredients completely unfamiliar to me to produce a dish that I've never actually tasted. Right now, I'm starting to study Thai food. I haven't much experience in eating it, other than the occasional restaurant dinner, and am unfamiliar with some of the ingredients. The first few dishes I made, I followed a recipe exactly.

Most of the time, however, a recipe is simply a suggestion or a reminder to me. I've got more cookbooks than I know what to do with, but mostly I just look through them for inspiration or to remember approximate proportions, ingredients or cooking times for dishes I haven't made in a while. What I end up putting on the table is almost never what any given recipe would have produced if followed to the letter.

Of course, if I were to post a recipe for someone verbatim, I would list my source...it's only polite.

This came up pretty often when I was writing a recipe column for a local newspaper. Basically, you can't copyright a recipe, because lists of ingredients, and methods can't be copyrighted.

This is from the Library of Congress, which is the copyrighting arm of the government.

Here is a link that might be useful: Copyrighting recipes

Why don't bloggers just disable the right click function so no one can copy their pictures?

Seems to me that would solve the problem. Unless of course there are ways around that too. But the average bear wouldn't know the ways around it. If they can't right click and copy it, they'd move along.

Some have mentioned the photo issue... Is it just because it was a photo of food with the recipe that is the issue for many? I ask this because, how many of us have used a photo from the web, maybe from a stock photo source or maybe from a random search for an image and never thought to credit the source? But we use it to get a point across, never using it to profit from it. Is that wrong? Many of those images are coming from sites where the photographer only gets paid if the photo is purchased and they eventually get a royalty.

I look at this forum as a place to exchange ideas and information. None of us are monetarily profiting from this exchange except for ivillage. And we're all profiting in knowledge and insight from all these postings, regardless of where the recipe originated. I hope everyone stays and continues to post and exchange wonderful cooking ideas.

By the way... this is an interesting topic for me at the moment, because one of my logo designs was sold by my client to a 3rd party for over $100,000. I only got the original money I charged to do the work. (And you can bet it was a far cry from that six-figure amount!)

And as for photos, I get clients regularly who take photos off the web and ask me to use them in their marketing brochures. They are often surprised when I refuse unless I purchase them first or find a way to get permission to use them.

Basically, recipes cannot be copyrighted. If they were, you'd be breaking the law everytime you used one to make dinner.

That being said, however, the form MAY be copyrighted (the words, the format, etc).

When sharing a recipe you got somewhere else, it's important to credit the source, if you've copied it exactly. If you've adapted it, it's vital that you put the directions in your own words.

Now, after all that--there are situations where one needs to make sure a recipe is original and unique. In the case of contests that list originality as one of the criteria, it's important that the contributor NOT copy a recipe exactly from someplace else, as well as that they do a web search to determine--as far as possible--that the recipe hasn't been published before.

Unfortunately, I've had a number of my original recipes 'stolen' over the years. Don't get me wrong--I'm always glad to share anything I make for someone else's personal use. But when you see something that is completely original and unusual, that's been published in an international source then being used by others to win contests--it's offensive. I've seen one of my recipes published in a very prominent cook's magazine, that was copied word for word--they didn't even change the way I worded the directions (and I have a very distinct style. Another of my recipes has actually won a half dozen contests for others who plagiarized it--again, copying the instructions word for word. And there's not a thing I can do about it, other than sit here gritting my teeth when I see someone else -- who has no morals -- has won another contest with it. Oddly, that same recipe appears on a number of restaurant menus and is used by many of those places where you go in and prepare your dinners to take home--and it doesn't bother me. Not sure why that is.

Well, anyway, point is--I try not to use a recipe in a way that will take money out of the creator's pocket. If someone here asks for a recipe that I am familiar with, if it isn't one of mine, I'll usually reference the book and auther, rather than put the recipe on a website. I think that's really the fairest way to go.