Comment by dcow
9 days ago
How do restaurants work, then? You can’t copyright a recipe. Instructions can’t generally be copyrighted, otherwise someone would own the fastest route from A to B and charge every person who used it. The whole idea of intellectual property gets really weird when you try to pinpoint what exactly is being owned.
I do not agree with your conjecture that big corps would win by default. Ask why would people need protection from having their work stolen when the only ones welding weaponized copyright are the corporations. People need the freedom to wield culture without restriction, not protection from someone having the same idea as them and manifesting it.
It’s more reasonable to say that the idea of intellectual property is challenging for nonlawyers because of the difficulty in understanding ownership not as one thing, but as a bundle of various elements of control, exclusion, obligation, or entitlement, even some of which spring into existence out of nowhere.
In other words, the challenge is not to understand “what exactly is being owned,” and instead, to understand “what exactly being owned is.”
> what exactly being owned is.
Thank you, this is beautifully put and very astute. Does a recipe, a culmination of a lifetime of experience, technique, trials, errors, and luck constitute a form of someone/thing's person-hood such that it can be Intellectual Property.
It depends. First I think we could make a distinction between not-intellectual-property and intellectual-property-with-no-protection but that doesn’t seem to be what you’re getting at.
Have you taken reasonable steps to keep it secret? It could be a trade secret and if course if you steal the recipe for KFC’s herbs and spices, you will be liable for civil damages for your misappropriation of their trade secret.
And if you describe a recipe in flowery prose, reminiscing about the aromas in grandmas kitchen, of course that prose is copyrightable.
Should you invent a special kind of chicken fry mix and give us a fanciful name, the recipes identifier if origin - its trademark -could be protectable.
But the fact that your chicken fry mix is made of corn starch and bread crumbs is a fact, like a phone book. Under most circumstances, not protectable.
ianyl tinla
A restaurant is a small manufacturing facility that produces a physical product. It’s not the same at all.
An artist is a small manufacturing facility that produces a physical (canvas, print, mp3, etc) product, no?
What is different about the production of Micky Mouse cartoons? Why is it normal for industries to compete in manufacturing of physical product, but as soon as you can apply copyright, now you exclusively have rights to control anything that produces a similar result?
Let’s say I write a book or record an album and there is no copyright. How do I get paid?
Musicians I suppose can tour, which is grueling but it’s something. Authors, programmers, actors, game studios, anything that’s not performed live would immediately become non-viable as a career or a business.
Large corporations would make money of course, by offering all you can eat streaming feeds of everything for a monthly fee. The creators get nothing.
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It looks like you're being purposefully ridiculous. There is an obvious difference between the two; cost of reproduction. For something with a cost of reproduction near zero (book, music, art, etc), IP restrictions matter. For something like a restaurant, factory, etc; the cost of reproduction is high.
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> How do restaurants work, then?
Primarily because recipe creation is not one of the biggest cost centers for restaurants?
Closed source - when was the last time your restaurant told you what was in, and how to make, your favourite dish?
What's in Coca Cola?
What are the 11 herbs and spices in Kentucky Fried Chicken?
How do I make the sauce in a Big Mac?
Yes, and notably the source recipe can’t be copyrighted. Trade secrets and recipes are not copyrightable. That’s the point. We have entire vastly profitable industries built around protection of trade secrets, with no copyright in play. Competing to make make the best cola flavored beverage or the best burrito is a thing. Competing to make the best rendition of Snow White, is not. What’s the rub? They don’t seem that different at all.
Snow White is not the best example, there are non-Disney versions, like the one with Sigourney Weaver and the one with Chris Hemsworth.
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How does someone close source a book?
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> when was the last time your restaurant told you what was in, and how to make, your favourite dish
Today? All the time? I just went into a new local joint today, talked to the owner about adding some vegetarian meals, and we hashed out some ideas in terms of both ingredients and preparation.
As a pescetarian and cook myself, I frequently ask establishments detailed questions about ingredients and preparation
> I do not agree with your conjecture that big corps would win by default.
Why wouldn't big corps win by default? They have the brand name, own the resources to make more polished version of any IP, and have better distribution channels than anyone else.
Can you tell me how this scenario won't play out?
1. Big corporation has people looking for new and trending IP.
2. Instead of buying the rights to it, they get their army of people to produce more polished versions of it.
3. Because they have branding and a better distribution channel, the money goes 100% to them.
> Ask why would people need protection from having their work stolen when the only ones welding weaponized copyright are the corporations.
People working in the field sell their copyright like Gravity Falls' Alex Hirsch: https://x.com/_AlexHirsch/status/1906915851720077617
> How do restaurants work, then? You can’t copyright a recipe.
They barely work. Recipes are trade secrets, and the cooks who use them are either paid very well, given NDAs or given only part of the most guarded recipes