cdh

Absolutely, and unashamedly. This whole thread has provided all kinds of inspiration and food for thought about what is right and what is wrong with legal protections for creative expression. Now I've added value to your musing by specifying the mechanism behind it that makes it work.

Indeed... the current state of affairs is entirely satisfactory, as far as I'm concerned. BUT, for those who don't think so, the options become either: 1) to litigate this and get a judge in a court somewhere to start a precedent that will have no clarity or firm boundaries and will only be refined by further litigation, or 2) Statutory modification. I'd always pick 2, even though it would be bad for business for me as a lawyer; option 1 would be terrible for the world as a whole. Since I live in the world, and don't have that business now, I'll happily forego that potential business in exchange for some certainty and lack of chilling effects. Consequently, rather than modifying the copyright act to broaden it, I propose something new that handles the unique qualities of the culinary world.

word, indeed. cookies for all!

I didn't think so, but what I've proposed is the least likely thing to become a huge mess. It is narrow, it should be optional, it avoids all of the current insanities of copyright law, and it won't trip up people just cooking like they always have. I agree that the current state of affairs seems to be handling the situation fine, but for those with a mad hankering to expand the law, beefing up the Copyright Monster is not the way to do it... something new and sane and under control is. I'd hoped that the mad legal expansionists would at least comment on my suggestions... maybe there just isn't anything there that looks fun to attack.

In thinking over this whole situation I've not been swayed from my position that copyright is the wrong form of protection for culinary creations. Copyright is too big a mess as it is, and adding to it will only make it worse. That said, I am beginning to think that some sort of sui generis protection might not be a bad thing, provided it has at least the following characteristics: - limited time frame. 5 years seems about right to me. Certainly not the current 120+. - inalienablilty, or an opportunity to reclaim. The creative individual should not be subject to negotiations that would strip all of their claims to the creation. Copyright has its 35 year reclamation right. That would translate into an 18 month reclamation right under this system. - compulsory licensing. Being a creator should not be grounds for injunctive relief against an infringer in this sort of circumstance. A compulsory license (like the law requires for musical compositions, hence why cover bands exist) would set a price that anybody cooking the dish would owe to the originator. Probably a Harry Fox Agency type organization would come into existence to collect this, just like in the music business. Who gets to set the license price is an interesting question... for music, the Copyright Office has a tribunal that meets every so often to set this price. For musicians, this is traditionally the most lucrative part of the business since album production costs are recouped out of royalties on the phonorecords (hence no payments at all until the hundreds of thousands of dollars it cost to make the album are recouped out of the artist's 12% of wholesale royalty rate), but if the artist published their own lyrics, then they're entitled to a nickle (or is it a dime now?) for each song on the album that they published right from the start. That can add up. - subject matter is covered only to within a narrow variance from its presentation at the originator's restaurant. - subject matter must meet novelty and non-obviousness criteria. - infringement only occurs when visual appearance and ingredient composition are within the narrow variance protected. - NO derivative works protection whatsoever. That is a method of protection for truly original culinary creations that I could happily live with. Comments, please.

Well, you've bought the reusable ones rather than the single use hop socks that are pictured with the lesson. More investment, but more return, whether it is proportional is up to you. Both will work fine, though the drawstring does mean you could probably get away with using just one. Just pull it out, open it up, add the next hop addition and pull the drawstring again. Availability of different sized PET bottles will depend on your local market. Here in the northern Philly suburbs, a soda bottler out of Allentown packages their seltzer in 500ml bottles. Dunno if anybody in Dallas does or not.

No, what I'm saying is that copyright started as a legal solution to a technological problem, and should remain one. If you can't see that from what I've said, there is no point in trying to explain it again. Read what I've written, think about, and you'll come around. Getting mad at me won't help that.

Looking good, Elie! I see you got a big grain steeping bag there, and a little nylon drawstring bag. Are you planning on using the drawstring bag in place of the hop socks? Put those hops and the yeast sachet into the fridge to keep them the freshest.

No. What I'm saying is that copyright law only came into existence at all when mechanical replication became widespread. Before that, there was no copyright (unless you're in some part of Ireland, maybe, and that still doesn't make sense, since Ireland was the famous homeland of scrivener monks who copied books generation after generation, preserving lots of early literature through the Dark Ages... not much creative literature was generated, but plenty of copying). It wasn't necessary, because only truly skilled artisans could make copies of anything, not just some schmoe with some movable type and a printing press. Maybe in your world I am just stupid and amoral, but I firmly believe that if somebody invests in gaining the skills to hand-make an exact replica of something, that is a good thing and should not be punished, like you are so intent on. So, I have no problems at all with somebody hand-making a copy of something. The passing it off as an original, I do have problems with. And they are problems that are dealt with by trademark law, not copyright law. Copyright is a hugely punitive area of the law today. You don't seem to understand that. You don't have to do a damn thing to prove any damage to yourself and the statute says that you're entitled to at least $30K and the attorneys fees needed to get your judgment. That turns copyright litigation into an extortion racket, see, for example, the tactics behind the recent rash of RIAA lawsuits. You certainly don't deserve a cookie today for your hostile attitude. I see no backfiring anywhere except in your perceptions. Cookie was simple shorthand for unneeded reward. Not everybody needs a cookie, but everybody would like a cookie... until it turns out that you need an army of lawyers who will eat most of your cookie in the process of getting it for you.

Yes, about 1710 there were enough printing presses floating around that mechanical copying was becoming an issue. Before then, it was not an issue (except maybe in Ireland). How many instances of le gach bó a buinín agus le gach leabhar a chóip were invoked between the 6th Century and 1710? And what precedential value did a Celtic noble proclamation have in any other legal sysem? You're not actually trying to make a natural law argument here, are you? If so, I'll leave your matters of faith undisturbed.

Very nicely taken out of historical perspective, both by misdirection and by myopia. I'd rather see the law in its evolutionary perspective, rather than latching onto a moment and declaring that that moment's ideas should predominate. Not that I admit a passing citation to the language of the constitution even accomplishes that. Read the Federalist papers. Where before the Statute of Anne was there ever anything like a copyright? All the way back to Ancient Greece, and Rome eh?? Show me. This proposal turns copyright into a cookie for people you like. Nothing more.

Just remember that historically, copyright was not a cookie given to the creative to make them feel good. Copyright was a legal solution to a technological problem. That problem, you ask? Mechanical copying. Until Star Trek replicators are invented (go inventolux!), cuisine does not face the same technological challenges that books (printing press), visual art (photo-reproduction and materials that permit many casts of a sculpture), and music (player pianos, tape recorders, etc.) do. After those three got copyright protection (recorded music surprisingly late), folks made bogus arguments that copyright should be a cookie to give to the creative choreographers, boat hull designers, etc. Copyright wasn't meant to be a cookie, and shouldn't be used as one today. So, to all of the accusations of "Why do you hate the cooks?" the answer is that they're differently situated, and don't need protection, even if they deserve a cookie.

Thinking of wild yeast, you could do a fun experiment to see just how yeasty your kitchen air currents are. Open a bottle of malta, pour it into a glass bowl, and watch it for a week. I bet it self-innoculates and starts growing whatever the predominant wild yeast in your house is. You'll see a sediment build up on the bottom of the bowl, and you might see little colonies floating on top. If you really want to isolate it to what's in the air, then sanitize the bowl by putting a couple of drops of bleach in, fill the bowl up, swirl it around, rinse it out, and rerinse it out. (Fermentation in the presence of chlorine makes some pretty awful flavors... chloraseptic is one way it has been described.) When you see some sediment on the bottom, have a taste of the liquid. You'll know what your wild yeast's flavor profile is... there is a small chance it might be nice, but odds are that it will be nasty.

Thinking about Sam's having mentioned the "starter" method of dealing with liquid yeast, I guess I should address it a bit to explain what it is all about and the easiest way to do it. This is most applicable to people using liquid yeast rather than dry yeast. (Both of the above preparations are "live", just because it is dry doesn't mean it's dead.) Yeast multiply by budding. That means that their growth is not arithmetic, but rather geometric. Every reproduction cycle doubles your yeast population. (1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,... but starting with upwards of 100 billion cells and ramping up from there.) The more yeast you've got, the quicker they can eat all the sugar in your wort, and the less chance anything else has to get established in there. To really give your yeast a kick-start, which is the idea behind the starter technique, you let them warm up a little and multiply a few times before they actually get pitched into your wort. ("Pitch" is brewer speak for tossing yeast into wort.) That way, there are more of them, they do their work quicker, and your beer benefits. This is not, however, to say that more yeast is always better. If you end up with too many yeast going at it all at once, you risk overproduction of the yeast's flavorful esters and phenolic compounds, and some yeasts produce their characteristic flavors more effectively when stressed, rather than when pampered. But it is easier to underpitch than to overpitch yeast. Now the question becomes where and how to let the yeast warm up and reproduce a couple of times. Sam's method, below, does work fine... but there is a simple shortcut that can make it even easier. Instead of worrying about mixing up some dry malt and water and hops, you can (in most parts of the US at least) purchase unfermented bottled malt beverages. The brand I know is Malta Goya, but there are others out there too. You'll find them in hispanic markets, and often in the "ethnic" aisle of your supermarket. They're priced like soda, or cheaper, and are of the right sugar concentration for yeast to comfortably get warmed up for beer fermenting. A bottle of malta emptied into a sanitized glass container is a fine training ground for your yeast. So, follow the instructions on your yeast package with regard to activating any internal nutrients that might be in there (Wyeast does this, others do not), and then add the yeast to the malta and cover up the vessel to keep airborne stuff out of it. In a day or two you'll see a sediment building up on the bottom of the vessel. That sediment is yeast cells that you can use to ferment your beer. Refrigerating the starter will encourage more of the yeast cells in there to fall out of suspension and join the cake on the bottom. That way you can decant most of the liquid (and the maltas are dark and might darken your beer if added) and just add the slurry of yeast cells that built up. For beginners using fresh modern dry yeast in a two gallon batch, you really don't have to worry about this step. Once you graduate to five gallon batches and start exploring the varieties of yeast that are available in liquid but not in dry form, then this step will aid you in maximizing the deliciousness of your beer.

Not quite- case law says that access+substantial similarity=infringement. Inspiration implies access, and the substantiality of the similarity is a question of fact. This is a huge ugly can of worms.

Okay, let's focus on other straw concepts instead. Here's a drawing I just made. It's an example of something that's eligible for copyright protection. I can make a limited edition run of ten of these and sell them on eBay. If somebody else copies this and starts selling it, I can go after that person under the copyright laws. Maybe even a raid on the factory. Pretty picture , but probably a derivative work from a kindergardener's work product in 1989 when the automatic copyright regime started in earnest. You've got some 22 year old out there who could get a judgment and attorneys' fees assessed against you, if only they remembered that crayon time. Pretty photo. And copyrightable as such. Taking that photo shouldn't, however, give Adria the right to monopolize balancing an urchin between two pieces of slate with a clear nipple- like wotzit on top.

Enough with the bumper sticker straw man. Bumper stickers are mostly catchphrases or slogans, and as such, their text is not copyrightable. Their graphic design may be. I say not because there is a difference between an art and a craft. Find me a furniture maker who has gotten a copyright on a piece of furniture. There is a hell of a lot of skill involved in making either a fabulous dish or a fabulous piece of furniture. That skill barrier is sufficient to protect the artisans. When you can make it, you can make it.

I believe I see prior art and/or earlier authorship appearing on this thread. OK Fat Guy, are you ready to start hounding chefg for royalties on those twirled cucumbers? Under your proposal, can jango's auntie get an injunction to make Alinea stop doing that? (plus attorneys fees, plus statutory damages of $30-150K?) If not, why not?

Now that is a government job I'd love to land. Maybe all this extension of IP into the kitchen isn't so bad after all. Imagine how much fabulous food would be involved in doing discovery in one of these cases. I'd imagine it might be tough to replicate the dining experience for the jury in the courthouse, so presentation of the evidence would have to be in situ... that would certainly increase the allure of jury duty too. But the preservation of the evidence issues might be tough... given how long it takes to get a case to trial, keeping the evidence from turning into compost might be an issue.

You are, of course, welcome to chime in. As is everybody else. I do ask, however, that everybody keep in mind that this course is for folks who might not know if they want to invest a lot in brewing equipment, and who don't know much about the process. Recommending toys, gadgets and involved processes should kept to a minimum. And you are right about the rinseless sanitizers working as you describe. I'm just trying not to bombard new brewers with a huge list of specialized goodies to buy. This course is all about keeping the barriers to entry to homebrewing low. Siphon starters cost what? $15 maybe? A length of hose costs what? $0.75? You can start a siphon with either. Starsan works well, so does bleach water.

There are all kinds of siphon tricks out there in the world. There are gadgets available sold as siphon starters that get the siphon going without anybody sucking on the tube like a giant crazy straw... (which is kind of fun, and hasn't led to any problems when I've done it, but then again I drop the destination end into a bowl of sanitizer and let the first little bit run into there after using the crazy straw method.) There is also the technique where you fill the tube with water from the tap then use that water to start the siphon, which works quite well and is fairly low risk. As I'd said in the course, I'm trying to steer people away from gadgets they don't necessarily need. If you want to pick up a siphon starting gadget, by all means do so.

This brings to mind an issue that you must consider. Sourdough cultures are wild yeasts, the exact kind we want to be very sure to keep FAR away from our beer. If you've got live wild yeast cultures in your kitchen, your chance of getting infected by them is higher because there are more of them around. They may well be wafting around on the air currents. It would be better if you didn't expose your unfermented beer to the air in your kitchen. Put the lid on it just after the boil ends, and get it out of there. Don't bottle in your kitchen either, unless you're absolutely meticulous about sanitizing everything. Same goes for folks who make vinegar. Acetobacter can get everywhere if you're not careful... no fun making a good beer only to feed it to the vinegar mother.

By siphon, I simply mean using the property of water in a tube to pull the water behind it along with it once some of it has fallen below the top level of the source. Here's a quick sketch that should get the idea across. Click here for more on the siphon principle.

Wow... I must apologize to everybody for writing in my Northeast USA dialect and assuming that you'd understand it. Please keep up with the terminology questions, since I think I was being clear. Obviously I wasn't. Yes, seltzer means unflavored fizzy water. Whether you call it Club Soda or Soda Water, both pass for seltzer. Buy the generic stuff... your beer won't be made any more happy by the brand name bottle. Don't use bottles from anything flavored if you don't want to risk your beer picking up some of that flavor.

Amen, inventolux. Patents are where the IP lockdown should end. They're rare, they require a significant novel invention rather than just "a two sentence post", and they are not automatic. If you can get one, then it's yours to do with as you please... Unlike copyright, the substance of a violation of a patent is certain and you can't wreck the business of lots of your peers by extorting cash for "rights clearances" from them because they are cooking something arguably derivative of your work. And there won't be executors and trustees (usually lawyers) with a fiduciary duty to wring every last cent out of the property for 70 years after you kick the bucket.