Copyright

[DAVEM]

Our self-managed allotment association wants to produce a booklet of members' favourite recipes and handy plot/garden hints. We may have this printed for circulation to members and friends as a fundraiser
Does anyone know where we stand as far as copyright is concerned if recipes submitted come from books or other publications ?

[tamsin]

That would breach copyright I'm afraid even if you make it free.

I'd suggest when you ask for contributions you make it clear that recipes must be the writers creation. You could have reviews of favourite recipe books where people could suggest a book without copying the content though so those less 'invent a new recipe' orientated can contribute.

If a copyrighted recipe did get in by mistake and the owner complained you'd be in a better position if your original request had included the statement that recipes should be the authors creation.

If you want to be really strict, a recipe your Gran invented is her copyright, she probably gave you licence to use it personally but not to print it or turn it into a commercial product so technically you'd need her permission specifically to use in that way. Probably a bit OTT for this instance though

Probably not relevant but if people give you a recipe they have created on the grounds it would be used in a booklet passed around/used for fund-raising. You'd breach their copyright if you then used it for something else eg publishing it properly or posting it online.

It all sounds a bit complicated but don't let it put you off, so long as you ask for original recipes and are just sharing it among the local community I doubt you'll have any problems.

[rustylady]

The whole copyright thing is very complicated as Tamsin says, and it does make me wonder why and how there are so many recipe books on sale, esp "celebrity chef" ones. There surely can't be that many totally different ways to cook things, surely.

[Two_Sheds]

Copyright is a very complicated issue. When I did my degree, we learned that in fashion design for instance, you can't simply copy a design (obviously) so you have to change (I think 3) significant factors for it to be OK ('inspired by' not 'copied')
eg
1) the colour
2) the fabric
3) the length

This is different to the knock off Louis Vuitton bags you see in Oxford Street, or the fake D&G tee shirts you see everywhere ... they are just fakes, and illegal.

So to make a recipe your own, you would have to do something like change an ingredient (courgette instead of beetroot), change a quantity, add something extra, change the recipe title. That kind of thing.

[NOG]

Your book could contain 10% of quoted material and you would have to give the referances in the apenex. But I doublt that you could use the 10% for whole recipies.

[tamsin]

There is no set rule to how much you can use or how much you have to change. For example, a company can't use a famous song in an advert just because they only include two lines out of 20.

Recipes are a bit different because in most cases they've existed for so long their original creator is unknown. But the way they are written down could be copyright. So anyone could write a recipe for mixing tuna and mayo and putting it on a jacket potato. But if I wrote 1000 words describing how to do it, that article would be copyright to me. So copying the text of a recipe out of a book would breach copyright.

[johninblackpool]

Why not just send an email to the publisher of the book the recipe came from and ask permission *** I'm sure if you axplain what the use is for they may give permission *** an email doesn't cost anything and its always worth a try

[susieq100]

I think it is almost impossible to violate copyright with regard to recipes unless it something very very specific - eg Heston Blumenthal's egg and bacon ice cream or snail porridge. Almost everything else is a variation on a theme and who owns the intellectual rights to - say vegetable soup? Ice-cream was invented by the Ancient Romans as was something very similar to pizza. So provided you don't use an ice cream recipe called Phish Food, you'd probably be OK!