Not to step on Flower's thread, what to about about recipes?

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2cat_lady

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Flower brought up a good idea--putting her recipes on her website. I have to start looking at some of my fellow innkeepers sites and see what they do but I have one question.
Properly or more important legally-- how do you post a recipe? I mean, I have favourites that I've been using from things I've collected over the years from newspapers, magazines, books...Some of them Ives tweaked a little and some I just make spoon for spoon. Do you need to contact the original publishers? The cook,baker or chef? What if you found it on line? Is just saying that you found it and giving credit where credit is due good enough?
It's one thing to make a photocopy of a recipe, which I've done, and given it to a guest. It's another to display it on your page and the cyber world. If I do this, and I'd love to, I want to make sure it's right.
 
My understanding If I have found a recipe on a blogger site I will give their name for credit. But if I tweak a recipe and have changed it some. then I don't give credit. Some of my recipes have come out of old and tried recipes from way back. Some have been given to me by other people over the 30 year time frame.. So in that case I cannot give source of recipe. Some have created myself. Other can be from the news paper, books , magazines, some years ago.
Even if you have taken a recipe from cook books you have to be careful of copy rights. For sure.
 
If you change a recipe, it is yours. Some of these are basic recipes that are universal. With most of mine, I leave out the salt (it really is not noticed) and make it fat-free by using the unsweetened applesauce. And I would wager that if you named a recipe with your inn name or some other name, no one would ever notice it or really care.
 
Copyright applies when the recipe is exactly the same, no changes. Rarely have I not needed to make modifications. When baking I tend to take a recipe and convert it to weights because it's so much faster to weigh things than it is to measure out and I don't have all those dirty dishes. 1 cup of flour is 128 g 4.5 oz. So I can just put the bowl on the scale, zero it and just weigh the flour without worrying about the volume being wrong. And sometimes I use temperature precision. For example, I make lemon curd with a candy thermometer without a need for a double boiler. But would others want to do it the way that I do it?
 
I checked into this pretty extensively a few years ago. Basically, a recipe can not be copyrighted. The only thing that can be copyrighted is the description of the recipe and any description or storyline that might go with it.
I have a recipe that I wanted to copyright. Couldn't do it. The only thing I could do was to have our b&b name in the title and I could trademark the b&b name.
 
I checked into this pretty extensively a few years ago. Basically, a recipe can not be copyrighted. The only thing that can be copyrighted is the description of the recipe and any description or storyline that might go with it.
I have a recipe that I wanted to copyright. Couldn't do it. The only thing I could do was to have our b&b name in the title and I could trademark the b&b name..
Thank you BD. That is exactly the answer I needed. There is a fella down here that wrote a great book on regional cooking and he has a fantastic blog. He's someone that I wanted to get ahold of personally and get his permission to post some of his stuff, and give him all due credit. But other than that, I should be good to go.
 
I checked into this pretty extensively a few years ago. Basically, a recipe can not be copyrighted. The only thing that can be copyrighted is the description of the recipe and any description or storyline that might go with it.
I have a recipe that I wanted to copyright. Couldn't do it. The only thing I could do was to have our b&b name in the title and I could trademark the b&b name..
Thank you BD. That is exactly the answer I needed. There is a fella down here that wrote a great book on regional cooking and he has a fantastic blog. He's someone that I wanted to get ahold of personally and get his permission to post some of his stuff, and give him all due credit. But other than that, I should be good to go.
.
Go one better and offer to sell the book at your inn. Or have a direct link on the recipe page to a local shop that sells the book online.
If you undertake to sell the book yourself, you can usually buy copies from the publisher at 40% off the cover price if you buy in bulk. (Maybe 10 copies.)
 
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