Copyright in Cookbooks and Recipes

Hi all,

I saw this article in the New York Times this week about plagiarism and copyright in the world of recipes and cookbooks: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/29/dining/recipe-theft-cookbook-plagiarism.html

The article discusses one recent high-profile instance of recipe plagiarism: A London chef published a cookbook based on the cuisine of her native Singapore, which turned out to feature not just recipes but also childhood recollections copied from an earlier work by another author.

American law generally considers recipes to be functional lists of ingredients, and just as in Canada, they usually cannot be copyrighted. However, literary embellishments like the copied childhood stories could possibly attract copyright protection.

In any case, it was public outcry over the plagiarism that led to the offending book being recalled. The original work it had copied received a boost to its profile, and was eventually reissued.

I thought the articled contained some interesting and varied viewpoints on the policy balance IP law seeks to strike between protecting the interests of creators, and encouraging the circulation of ideas.

One illuminating comment was posted on the article by someone who says they’re a lawyer specializing in copyright (presumably working in the US). They wrote that granting copyright in recipes “would undermine how copyright works… copyright protects the expression of ideas, not ideas themselves. as a corollary, if an idea can only be expressed in one way (or a very limited number of ways), the idea and expression are said to “merge” and thus the expression cannot be protected, as protecting the expression would confer an almost century-long monopoly on the idea. importantly, this rule doesn’t apply to only recipes. perhaps its most important area of application today is in computer software (which, itself, is largely a collection of instructions and facts like a recipe).”