Trade · 6 pages · 12 min

Why a recipe's words can be copyrighted and the dish cannot

The prose and pictures around a recipe can be expression, while the dish itself is a result anyone may cook.

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From the opening

Particular sentences, photographs, or original commentary around a recipe can be copyrighted as expression. The ingredient list and the plain steps, treated as a method of making food, are not a copyrighted dish, and cooking that dish is not the copying of a literary work. The opening covers prose and photos can be expression, ingredient lists function as facts, and cooking does not copy the page.

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Inside

  • Prose and photos can be expression
  • Ingredient lists function as facts
  • Cooking does not copy the page
  • The dish itself is not the work
  • Where the idea stops applying
  • A distinction worth keeping

Sources

  • Copyright in recipe text
  • Procedures excluded from copyright