No, I'm not calling food bloggers "blood suckers", before anyone accuses me. But a bit of verse which my Mother would occasionally quote is sometimes rather grandly called "the Siphonaptera", and its underlying message is that:
"bigger fleas have smaller fleas upon their backs to bite them"
Why is this relevant ? because while some food bloggers will occasionally lament the fact that their own words and photos are sometimes cut & pasted onto other sites, they don't perhaps stop to think that when they cut & paste a recipe from a professional food writer, they may be starting exactly that process.
An example I can give you concerns some recipes which Dan Lepard wrote for Sainsbury's Magazine. They commissioned him to do the work, and both morally and legally, it was up to Sainsbury's Mag and Dan to decide how the work was published and distributed. Now, I don't think many bloggers cut & paste out of a sense of malice, I think that they either do it without understanding the moral and legal issues, or they simply don't realise that they should at the very least ask permission before giving someone else's professional content away.
But that's what one person did, republishing the whole recipe at http://thechocolatepot.blogspot.com/2010/06/all-in-white-whoopie-pies.html
I'm sure it was done out of excitement and admiration, not malice. But it wasn't thought about first, and the recipe should not have been printed without permission - doing so limited the value of the recipe to Dan and could have prevented him using it somewhere else. And to those of you who always tell food writers that "printing your recipes helps you sell more books", not one of the people who left a comment on that blog suggested that they were motivated in any way to buy one of Dan's books or even a copy of the magazine the recipe was written for (in fact, I reckon magazines are particularly vulnerable to cutting & pasting, as they sell into such a narrow time window).
And what then followed ? Why, of course, another website further down the food chain cut and pasted what the first blogger had written: http://familycookingonline.blogspot.com/2012/02/all-in-white-whoopie-pies.html
And so the harm is done: the lid, once taken off, cannot be put back on.
And that's part of the damage that food bloggers do, when they cherrypick recipes from an author and post them without permission. They only see that single recipe they've just posted on their own website, and not that this cut & paste can begin to cascade as other sites leech off them and repeat the process of taking and posting; and certainly not that they are just one blogger amongst many, each taking just one thing here and there but collectively looting a professional food writer's larder and potentially putting their entire work online, and depriving them of their commercial and moral rights. A food blogger who cuts and pastes does not act in isolation, yet often cannot see beyond their own little website.
The solution: do not cut and paste someone's recipe, and do not delude yourself that you are doing the author a favour. You might as well stick your hand in their pocket and see what you can pull out: and you would protest if I did that to you.
15 comments:
Very interesting. I confess I am not entirely blameless here, but I will be rewriting my (mostly older, relatively few) posts to which this post applies as soon as I have time (and not at an unspecified point, I will actually do this). I have now very much adopted the 'talking around' a recipe that you advocate in your previous post. I have always linked where possible.
I would however, like to seek clarification. In May 2010, I contacted Dan re publishing his blackcurrant and apple cupcake recipe. He contacted Sainsbury's magazine who replied to me saying it was fine to publish it so long as the issue was credited and that issue was no longer on sale. I subsequently received an email from Sarah Randell (editor at the time) saying that it was fine to publish recipes from the current magazine too, so long as writer and magazine were credited and it was mentioned that the issue was on sale. The tone of the email was that it was fine to do this and I read 'Keep up the good work' as being that I was in some way doing something positive to promote the magazine. Please excuse my confusion!
On a slightly different point - if I have adapted a recipe slightly (changing flavour, substituting for allergy) I can understand that to publish this would be unacceptable in terms of copyright breach (given that I would not have significantly modified either recipe or method) but how is it best to record this on a blog? One of my main reasons for blogging is to record what I have done in case I wish to reproduce it for myself at a later date. I therefore need to record my ingredients and substitutions and would obviously prefer to do this on the relevant blog post where I discuss the recipe. I would appreciate advice on how to approach this problem.
Apologies for the length of the comment, but a serious issue requires a proper discussion. Many thanks.
Hi there "C", thanks for your comment. On your first point, the difference was in the action you took at the time, by asking first. I don't take the view that recipes should never be available for bloggers to publish. With a book, I would suggest offering a shortlist of maybe 6-8 recipes for bloggers to choose from, bake, and then post with their own photos. With a magazine feature, I think it's often fair to have one recipe that bloggers can make. But then food bloggers need to agree to leave the rest of the book or magazine alone, so that potential buyers and library users have plenty to find for themselves.
And that's what you did, a perfect example of how to do it. You gave a full credit and said you'd obtained permission, but most of all, your post was primarily about your baking and what it was for, rather than just a bare cut & paste. In fact, I hope you're ok with me giving a link to your post here: http://cakecrumbsandcooking.blogspot.com/2010/02/apple-blackcurrant-and-clotted-cream.html
I wouldn't have been happy if every recipe from the magazine feature had ended up online, either on one blog or across several, and permission wouldn;t have been forthcoming to anyone who wanted to do that. So it's about asking, and people just using an agreed "sample". It's also worth remembering that food blogging has grown exponentially, and what might have been ok two years ago may not work with the far greater number of blogs today.
On adapted recipes, I would suggest giving a link to the original recipe first, and then simply writing about the changes you made and how you adapted it to what was in your pantry. That way, a reader is sent to the "source" and your blog is about your baking, and once again written "around" a recipe rather than posting it. One point where we may have different opinions is the last thing you mention. I would always remember that a blog is public and open to anyone who can find it (made easier by Google!). So I would use a pen and notebook if I was writing a recipe out with my own alterations incorporated into it. I'm not sure there's a way to do this in the very public space of a blog, unless the changes you've made are really substantial. But then, I find a written record less fraught than juggling a laptop, when I'm working in the kitchen!
I think it was Marco Pierre White who said something along the lines of, if a chef tells you he invented a recipe then he is lying. Perhaps a touch strong in tone, but to me, the sentiment it true.
I feel that in cooking, art inspires art, I doubt there are many people out there who have invented a recipe from scratch. I'd think most recipes published in magazines or on websites are just evolutions of dishes that have existed for a long time. In terms of cooking we are all plagiarists.
I would imagine that the first ever whoopie pie the Dan made we a recipe from somewhere else, which he has adapted and evolved over time. So is what he is claiming to be his recipe really his in the first place?
How do you monitor for this? If I take his recipe and publish it with 70g of butter instead of 75g does that then make it mine, have I evolved it enough to claim some sort of ownership?
Cooking, skills, techniques, rules, recipes and styles have been passed down the generations from parent to child for hundreds of years. It is how our cooking and food has become so elaborate. Plagiarism is the fundamental backbone of modern cooking.
David, can you explain to us the difference about the law on copyright for a whole book versus an individual recipe? A lot of people are saying that there is no copyright on a recipe but there is on the method, which is understandable. I totally agree that we should claim recipes as our own but if we are being influenced by authors then what is the issue. I personally (as well as many food bloggers I know) have purchased books DIRECTLY because i've seen a recipe on a blog.
liverpoolfoodblog, thank you for your comment. But I have to say, I think you're wrong in so many ways. A recipe doesn't have to be the first of its kind to deserve protection, the fact that there are thousands of biscuit recipes out there doesn't for example mean that a biscuit recipe someone writes today can't be copyright. The test for copyright is not one of absolute novelty or non-obviousness (as for example a patent application might require), but rather the exercise of culinary and writing skill to the concept and method. But that does not make every professional food writer a plagiarist, as you seem to claim. You may feel that "art inspires art" but what right does the artist have ? Who pays the artist, and what control should they have over the copying and redistribution of their work ?
Here are three places for you to read a bit more about the concept of copyright. The first is http://www.theartistscharter.org/ which is from people in the music industry, but I think still relevant, and they assert their right to make a living from their work, and to copyright protection. You might say that every tune is just the same notes in a different order and rhythm, or that you don't think music should be copyright, but how do you want musicians to live ? Likewise, every new recipe may "just" be the same letters of the alphabet in a different order, but so is a novel or a poem. But how do you want a food writer to live, and what control should they have on how their work is published and re-published ?
The second place is http://www.archive.org/about/copyright_TH.php where a law professor makes the point that to enjoy copyright as a "literary" work, something doesn't have to be what we'd think of as literature (e.g. a novel, a poem) to be protected, and that's where recipes stand: "works expressed in words".
And finally, I've said it before but http://sharonrobards.blogspot.com/2009/02/are-recipes-covered-by-copyright.html explains why a "derivative" work (one where you've tweaked the original) is not copyright, but also tries to give examples of the point at which a recipe would become copyright.
But I would again ask you to consider the moral point: if a food writer has put their knowledge, time and creative ability into writing a recipe, why should you expect to be able to take it for nothing and use it in print or online as you see fit ? Would you value your own work at zero, or be content for someone else to take it and benefit from it, at your expense ?
Traditional recipes, techniques and styles of cooking, passed down through generations by word of mouth, are not in any case copyright. To confuse that with someone writing recipes and cookbooks today is to compare a motor car with a banana, and I feel that you confuse tradition with plagiarism.
David,
As this entire issue is becoming increasingly fraught and emotions on all sides are running high, I have started a thread over on UKFBA where hopefully everyone can discuss it on a neutral forum.
http://www.ukfba.co.uk/forum/topics/copyright-derivative-works
We very much hope to see both you and Dan over there. Dan and his work are greatly loved and respected by many many bloggers all of whom wish to clear the air.
Dom, this has been talked about on Vanessa’s site
GoddessOnABudget but I think you need to avoid tripping yourself up by the careless use of words like “recipe”. You are wrong if you say “there’s no copyright in a recipe”, but I think what you’re trying to say is “there’s no copyright in a mere list of ingredients”, which true, but a rather different thing. Likewise, there’s no copyright in the idea of a recipe, only in the expression of it. So if I say I have an idea for “Roast loin of wombat with a warrigal spinach jus”, that idea is not copyright, even though nobody previously seems to have voiced it; but if I put it into words, the recipe is copyright, even if I don’t have it published.
A single recipe is still copyright. The only addition to that fact for a book of recipes is that copyright will also reside in the typographical arrangement. In other words, if you copy the list of ingredients from a single recipe, but then write a fundamentally new method, you are fine - this also protects food writers if they use a list of ingredients which is coincidentally identical to that used for a quite different dish. But please note, your method needs to be fundamentally different: different methods and combinations at each stage, not just a cheeky paraphrase. However, if you were to take an entire book and in every case, put a new method to each list of ingredients, you’d be on exceptionally shaky ground, because the evidence would be there that you’d abused an overall typographical collection. And we’ve had to deal with this, where a food blogger wanted to work their way through an entire book and put every recipe from it online with their own comments on each one. But why it never occurred to them that this was a dreadful idea, I’ll never know.
But you’re still missing the two fundamental points I’m making: (1) that bloggers cannot just take every recipe they want, and re-publish them. They need to ask permission first, or work from a shortlist the book or magazine publisher can provide, or better still, write “around” a recipe and either give a link to where it’s authorised for online publication, or give details of where it is in print (e.g. book or magazine), without giving the recipe away. It is not yours to give, and the best food blogging is about the blogger’s own baking, life and photography, not about reprinting someone else’s recipes. And (2) if food blogs republishing recipes did, as some claim, boost book sales, then the mushrooming in food blogs over the last few years would have been rapidly followed by an explosion in cookbook sales. That has not happened. So the most obvious proof that cutters & pasters might like to present is simply not there. Which rather undermines the claim, does it not ?
Helen, there’s just a few problems with your suggestion. The first is that this forum is public, and open to all readers, whereas the UKFBA site requires membership and one's membership application being “approved”, and a thread there cannot be read by members of the public. So I don’t feel it’s a “neutral” forum, it's certainly not public, and having the discussion there would cut most people out of contributing.
The second thing is that for whatever reason, my application for UKFBA membership probably several weeks ago has never been approved. I don’t know why, maybe no-one’s bothered looking, but I’ve just checked again and it still says:
“Your membership to UK Food Bloggers Association is pending approval
Hello, David Whitehouse
Your profile details must be approved by the Administrator before you can become a member of UK Food Bloggers Association. You will receive an email once your profile is approved.”
And to be honest, I don’t think this is fraught, or that emotions are running high on all sides. I’m quite calm and clear about what I see as good practice for food bloggers and how to use someone else’s recipes, and while I've seen some probably ill-advised and at times mean-spirited comments from one or two people who don't like being challenged about publishing recipes without permission, they're not representative of the general discussion.
As a food blogger, I fully understand the position you are conveying, is a problem. Cutting and pasting, picture theft etc is not ok, and is skirting on some pretty touchy copyright laws as well as an ethical issue. I work in a legal environment and I fully understand where your coming from. This point needed to be raised, has been raised, has been widely discussed across the blogosphere (and clarified) and actions have already been taken.
However, I’m uneasy with the tone in which this post has been written. I feel like you have tarred us all with the same brush and unfortunately for us, that tar will stick. I would be grateful if you could acknowledge that not all food bloggers “cherry pick” recipes. You say "and that's part of the damage that food bloggers do" - Not all food bloggers do that. Not all food bloggers think that is ok. Not all food bloggers are happy with other people doing that either.
I understand that you wish to make it clear what is ok and what isn’t ok. Calling people out is not helping although I know that you were simply doing it to prove a point. If you see something you aren’t happy with, contact the blog writer/web administrator as you have done in the past. More often than not they will simply say that they didn’t know what they were doing was an issue and correct it as soon as possible. A simple mistake. To err is human and all that.
It’s a very sensitive issue that some people need educating on - and they will look to you to do that in a professional manner. I think everyone will agree that this situation has got out of hand and is genuinely upsetting some bloggers. I know some people are finding your comments a little harsh and that truly is distracting from the actual issue at hand.
Hi anonymous, thanks for your comment – and do feel free to post here under your real name, I’m not an ogre.
Yes, I’m happy to acknowledge that not all bloggers cherrypick recipes, and I hope that anyone reading my posts on this blog will see that I think there are a lot of good food blogs out there, and part of what often makes them good is that they don’t cut & paste. But if this issue had been so widely discussed, and action taken by bloggers before I raised the subject, I’m surprised that it has proven to be such a live issue.
I’ve already said that I don’t think most bloggers cut & paste out of malice, but more probably because they haven’t thought the issue through, or have made false assumptions about their right to do something and the utility of it. Often, people have been only too willing to help (and possibly learn) when asked to remove content. But some have been unpleasant and vindictive, and in some cases the remarks they’ve left on their blogs or made on social media sites have been quite out of order. But it’s not me at fault, and they shouldn’t react that way to a request from an editor.
I’m sorry if some bloggers have found being asked to remove copyright material upsetting, but I don’t agree that the situation is out of hand, and it doesn’t mean that I should let them continue to cut & paste. There’s a really easy solution for anyone finding it all too stressful: where you’ve posted someone’s recipes without getting their permission or finding out if it’s welcome and appropriate, take that content off your blog. If anyone finds that harsh, they should ask themselves how professional food writers and publishers feel about their work being so widely cut & pasted without their permission.
It takes forever to get your membership to UKFBA approved, its nothing personal!
Dear David,
I have found the topic and surrounding discussions of food blogging and reposting recipes very interesting. I rely quite heavily on the web to try out recipes and to guide my purchases when it comes to recipe books. If an author provides well written and consistently successful meals, treats, or snacks online I will in fact purchase their books. I can't speak for anyone else, but as a graphic designer I will always prefer to own a copy of the book the recipe is found in. I also, don't tend to republish anything but a link to a recipe which exists online (usually from the author or publisher's site) - feeling that to reproduce from a book is wrong.
I agree with your underlying argument that online culture is too ready to take material on sites and reproduce it without permission. The technology developed at a much faster rate than legislation could cope with. It is the proverbial gate and bolting horse. It is also an unfortunate by-product of keeping the culture of the web collaborative and open. I personally have published illustrations online and have come to the conclusion that while I wouldn't be happy to see someone else taking them - it is the unfortunate reality of putting them out into the digital world.
I will be honest and say that I had never heard of Dan Lepard prior to seeing links of the various comments you posted on food blogging sites. My first reaction to those posts was overwhelmingly negative. As a business manager I imagine it is your role to be the strong arm of the team, while Mr Lepard builds the business on the creative side. The posts have, however, prompted me to not want to purchase any of Dan's books or articles if at all possible. Reading the above I understand what you are trying to accomplish in terms of protecting Dan's rights, however, in terms of promoting/protecting your business it seems short-sighted and set to damage it rather than grow it.
While I was finding out who Mr Lepard was I noticed that his work is often published in media with strong web presences (BBC, The Guardian). I wondered what your thoughts on the 'share' buttons on articles containing recipes were? I believe web functionality is part of the process which encourages people to consider copyrighted works as public domain - especially when the publisher is giving you the option to 'share'.
Kind regards,
Marjorie Campbell
Hi David,
Firstly, just to let you, my membership for UKFBA took ages to get approved. I think it just runs slowly.
Secondly, I think the resolution for this issue of copyright is very clear. Don't cut and paste. Give clear credit when adapting recipes. I think there are a lot of bloggers that have totally missed the point and ensuing confusion has led to angst on their part.
The fuss that is currently going on in the UKFBA forum all seems a bit silly to me. And appears to be going around in circles.
I don't think your post here was too harsh or that you were attempting to tarnish us all with the same brush.
http://foodycat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/yeasted-sweet-breads-and-copyright.html I weighed in with some thoughts... I have been considering this for ages, hence diving in when the flames have died down.
Hi Foodycat, thanks for chipping in here and yes, I would recommend people to go and read your blogpost at Foodycat: Yeasted sweet breads as I think it makes some excellent points.
As some else pointed out to me, there's something basically a bit "off" and unacceptable about a blogger saying they'd found a Dan Lepard recipe, mentioning him twice more by name in describing how good it is, and heading the recipe "Dan Lepard's recipe for...." and then (when asked only to replace the recipe details with a link to the original -they were never asked to delete their post), stating publicly and aggressively that they'll refuse to accept my request. And "consulting lawyers" to threaten me, as their next step.
I'm very happy for people to find that site and read my request and subsequent comment, to consider the way my request was written, and to decide for themselves if what I asked really justified the resulting threats and nastiness aimed in my direction.
And I have to ask, who are the real bullies here - the author trying to control the extent to which their work is re-published and re-cycled, or the very small number of bloggers who take violent exception to a request to simply link to the original ? And this particular request was made because the blogger was also involved in a forum where seven or eight of Dan's recipes had been "adapted" but posted making repeated use of his name - at which point, it doesn't look like admiration but more like wholesale scraping.
There's one other point I'd underline: we would always encourage originality and creativity, and that would include praising blogs which acknowledge and name an inspirational recipe by another food writer, but then take the idea and make something substantially new and different with it. Foodycat does exactly that, taking a recipe that she's used many times as a starting point but then changing ingredients, proportions and presentation, to make something new and different, and all written about in her own words. That is the best in food blogging, and I applaud it - and it is a world away from either cutting & pasting or doing no more than paraphrasing or closely "adapting" an existing recipe without any original input by the blogger. I would always encourage food bloggers to use the creativity and love of food that they embody to do something new - or to share their readers with the original writer of a recipe, by providing a link to that person's pages. That is surely the original and generous spirit we should be encouraging, and the argument about whether someone is "entitled" to cut & paste rather pales into insignificance beside that thought.
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