<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
Lynda Swink asked about posting a recipe to her blog.
The following is direct rom the copyright office:
"Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds,
or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection. However,
when 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."
If you write up your own directions, and the ingredients are also not
identical (as you've described), you really have nothing to worry
about. A recipe can't "belong" to anyone in any real sense (short of
getting a patent on it) -- the combination of ingredients can't be
copyrighted by anyone. What may be copyrighted is the written
description, directions, the arrangement of elements, layout in a
book, and things like that. And yes, you can mention the brand of
flour you use, but if the brand is trademarked, you might want to
indicate that with a TM or circled R symbol (depending on whether the
trademark has actually registered). This assumes that you're not
publishing the recipe for financial gain -- for example, in a recipe
book that you will offer for sale. If you are doing that sort of
thing, you should probably consult with an attorney to be sure you
don't need to do anything else. For posting on your blog, it's not a
problem. You could, if you really wanted to be cautious in the
extreme, you could simply give an attribution to the original, say,
something like "this recipe is my adaptation of a recipe originally
found in Rachael Ray's cookbook", or "adapted from Aunt Jemima's
pancake recipe".
Mark
Mark J. Rosen
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