STEALING RECIPES

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According to the U.S. Copyright Office, mere listings of recipe ingredients aren’t subject to copyright protection. Add an explanation or directions for using those ingredients, however, and it’s an original work, subject to copyright laws. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from sharing recipes for hundreds of years.

Today, people often post recipes on the Internet, whether they’ve created the concoction themselves, typed it in from a favorite cookbook or magazine, or copied and pasted it from a cooking program or recipe CD. Once posted, the recipe becomes part of the Internet’s huge (and often illegal) library.

For instance, if you search Cook’s Illustrated (http://www.cooksillustrated.com) for mashed potatoes, you’ll find a pointer to a mashed potatoes recipe from January 2003. The website doesn’t list the recipe, though, because the magazine charges a subscription fee for access. But chefs who don’t want to put down their spatula and pull out a credit card can find the exact same recipe by searching for mashed potatoes and cook’s illustrated (or cooks illustrated) on Google.

An even better way to find recipes is to use Google, because recipes are stored as text, not binary files. Google indexes newsgroup conversations, so a search at http://groups.google.com pulls up thousands of recipes. When looking for published recipes, search for ingredients as well as the magazine, newspaper, or cookbook that ran the original recipe. Most people mention the source of the original recipe, along with the recipe itself (although mentioning the source doesn’t keep them from violating copyright law).

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