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Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

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copying recipes

8 Answers to Copyright Questions About Recipes and Books

December 6, 2016 by diannejacob 73 Comments

copyright-lawyer-lesley-ellen-harris

Copyright attorney Lesley Ellen Harris.

When Copyright Educator and Author Lesley Ellen Harris asked if I had any copyright questions for a blog post, I put the word out on social media. Food writers asked several questions. Lesley has generously answered them — in plain English.

Here are 8 answers to copyright questions about recipes and books:

1. When someone re-publishes my recipes word for word (headnote, instructions, variations, etc.)  without attribution, I usually write to them and try to work it out. But if that goes nowhere, is there a legal avenue?

Copyright law doesn’t protect the list of ingredients in a recipe. However, the language used to describe the recipe’s instructions and the headnote are protected by copyright. Attribution may be a [Read more…] about 8 Answers to Copyright Questions About Recipes and Books

Filed Under: Ethics, Self Publishing, Writing Tagged With: copying recipes, copyright laws for cookbooks, copyright laws for recipes

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