IACP workshop on ethically re-writing recipes for publication

[gfron1]

I know this comes up all the time including on this site, so here's a good opportunity to learn how to ethically take someone else's recipe and rework it for publication HERE

[Tri2Cook]

Based on what I've seen on most internet sites and blogs, I assumed the standard was to simply add the words "adapted from" to the beginning of the recipe and let it roll.  


Seriously though, for the 10 minutes or so that I made my attempt at blogging, I wasn't sure about the ethics so I just didn't include any recipes that weren't my own. So it could be interesting information for many.



 

[djyee100]

 

...developers wonder “how many changes to a recipe makes it a new recipe”? (sic)

 

The workshop description is making the distinction (I think) between "adapted from" recipes with credit to the original author,

 and recipes based on another recipe with no such attribution. The second category is supposed to be "new" recipes from the person publishing the recipe. There should be something so different about the recipe, compared to the original recipe that provided inspiration, that the writer can take credit for it.

 

That doesn't happen in the real world, of course. A cookbook author I know was incensed to find a recipe she recognized in somebody else's article, and the only change was an additional tablespoon of sugar. The recipe had been rewritten of course--otherwise it would have been a case of copyright infringement.

 

The last time I checked, it's legal (i.e., no copyright infringement) to use an ingredients list. However, the text of a recipe is protected by copyright. So on blogs, on EGullet (I've done it) it's legal to copy an ingredients list and rewrite the recipe text. It's ethical, sensitive, polite, and good karma to give attribution ("adapted from") to the original recipe author.

[Norm Matthews]

I know I gave Martha Stewart permission to print one of my recipes.  It was published in one of her mags. and is still on her website and gives me credit at both,  but a  San Diego newspaper reprinted and gave the credit to MS.  It was subsequently reprinted in at least a couple other places with her getting the credit.    I know that I have passed recipes on, giving credit to the person I got it from, only later to hear it being accredited to me.  So how can anyone really know the true source of most recipes?

[gfweb]

I know this comes up all the time including on this site, so here's a good opportunity to learn how to ethically take someone else's recipe and rework it for publication HERE

 

Ethically.

 

Indeed.

[LillysBells]

While reading this thread, I couldn't stop hearing a quote from Albert Einstein

 

creativity is knowing how to hide your sources

 

 

But in all seriousness, Norm makes a good point. Even with credit given, things get lost in the reprinting, sharing, and pinning of recipes. And if they weren't, recipes would soon be accompanied by footnotes.

[Mjx]

While reading this thread, I couldn't stop hearing a quote from Albert Einstein

 

 

But in all seriousness, Norm makes a good point. Even with credit given, things get lost in the reprinting, sharing, and pinning of recipes. And if they weren't, recipes would soon be accompanied by footnotes.

 

There's never a good argument for sloth and incompetence trumping fairness; you have to do your best, and the possibility of someone else dropping the ball isn't a solid reason to put it in your pocket (unless that's your 'best', in which case, you've set up an argument for anyone else appropriating all that you have).