Dianne Jacob, Will Write For Food

Useful Tips, Interviews, and Stories to Inspire Food Writers and Bloggers

recipe copyright

How to Write Recipes That Are Harder to Steal

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Recipe-RobberI’ve written many times about how individual  recipes can’t be copyrighted here in the US. But did you realize that you can defend a copyright if parts of your recipe contain “substantial literary expression?”

What exactly is that, and why should you bother?

“Substantial literary expression” establishes the information in a recipe as yours. That could be just as important as copyright, when it comes to theft.

Let me explain. US copyright law defines substantial literary expression as: [Read more…] about How to Write Recipes That Are Harder to Steal

Food Bloggers Fight Firestorm of Abusive Facebook Pages

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A group of food bloggers on Google+ has formed a group called PIPO, for Protect Intellectual Property Online, to inform each other of pages they’ve found that copied recipes and photos. Susan Powers of Rawmazing wrote this guest post about the situation:

Something ugly is happening on Facebook, and as a food blogger, I am not only disturbed, I am alarmed.

People are starting Facebook pages with copied recipes and photos from food blogs and repost them on their page, either without attribution or improper attribution. Some even go as far as to claim the copied recipes and photos  are theirs. And some are actually threatening the food bloggers who contact them.

Typically, these page administrators create recipe collectives and post photos (even watermarked ones!) and complete copied recipes without permission. This is a copyright violation and violates Facebook’s Terms Of Service.

If this wasn’t bad enough, administrators of these Facebook pages encourage followers to “share” the recipe, which engages Facebook’s Edge Rank and throws their pages to [Read more…] about Food Bloggers Fight Firestorm of Abusive Facebook Pages