<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
Again, this is from an academic perspective.  It is legal to copy excerpts
from books for distribution to classes for educational purposes, up to a
certain percentage of the entire work.  Without this possibility, we would
have to demand that our students spend hundreds of dollars on books per
course, or demand that students who are also carrying part=time to full-time
loads and/or family responsibilities somehow carve out the time and adjust
their schedules to use the reserve reading room, in competition with hundreds
of other students in any one large survey course.  Not to use selective
copying and distribution would be deeply discriminatory towards students who
are not wealthy or supported by wealthy parents.  This is not pirating of
entire works by any means, and in many cases results in the purchase of a
book for the library or the faculty member where otherwise such a purchase
might not occur -- why buy a book that cannot be used?
 
As this list is educational in purpose, I fail to see why we cannot apply
similar reasoning.  No one has proposed to put all of Bette Hagman's bread
recipes on-line without her permission, just one or two.  A subscriber trying
those recipes might then decide, if s/he can afford it, to purchase the book
or check it out from a public library.  In the second case, this would encou-
rage the library to purchase more books for this particular audience and, again,
result in purchases of books which might not occur otherwise.  Thus the posting
of one or two recipes from a book might (a) address a subscriber's pressing need
for a particular recipe and (b) encourage the purchase of the book from which
the recipe was drawn.
 
Second, adjusting to this diet has created significant opportunity costs in
time that could be spent on earning income, as well as direct costs for expen-
ditures on very expensive ingredients, in most of our lives.  In my case it has
almost completely rewritten my career path and decisions both in time, and in
choice of jobs and work level to afford private insurance rather than rely on
the HMO which left my son suffering, undiagnosed until I myself made the diag-
nosis, thanks to material I was able to find in the public library and on-line.
I would hope that we could be charitable with one another in sharing expensive
resources as those new to the problem adjust to its demands.
 
Third, sharing recipes encourages the purchase and use of products which it is
in all our interests to make more affordable and more available.  The more
sophisticated we become as customers for gluten-free and non-allergenic foods
and pharmaceuticals, the more adept we will become at creating local shopping
cultures amenable to our needs.  This has both service-oriented benefits and
benefits for local economies within the often beleaguered health-food sector.
 
As a scholar of cultures which cannot afford or do not choose to make available
the sort of resources we have in our public libraries, I will continue to argue
strenuously in favor of the free circulation of information, with absolute
respect for protection of intellectual property as outlined in our current
copyright laws.  I will also be posting recipes to the list with full attribu-
tion and within the bounds of copyright law.  As a compromise I would simply
suggest that those who do not feel this is acceptable not take the recipes we
share, and go out and purchase the books in question if they interest you.  My
postings like most of the ones before will contain full bibliographical citat-
tions to that end.
 
May I request an opinion from the list administrators on this issue?
 
Elizabeth Frierson