What is the proper, courteous and LEGAL way to post another person’s recipe (either from their blog or book) onto your blog?

For example, I want to write a new blog post about a recipe I tried from either a book or blog – how does one go about doing this?

I would first check to see if the blog has a policy regarding this. Many bloggers simply want you to ask for permission first. Personally I don’t mind if people post my recipes as long as they attribute it to me…preferably with a link. So my policy is to attribute the recipe to the blogger and add a link to the original recipe. If they ask me to take it down (which has never happened) I would totally comply.

Well, legally, keep in mind that no one can stop you from cooking a recipe and writing about it. Recipes – lists of ingredients – are not copyrightable. They’re just lists of ingredients and quantities. So if you find a recipe for, let’s say potato soup that contains chicken stock, onions, potatos, garlic, and cream … you can take that recipe and blog it and you’re not legally required to attribute it to anyone.

What you cannot do is copy the TEXT of the recipe – what’s called the “narrative” – because that is copyrighted to the author.

So … if a blog has a policy of saying ‘you cannot use my recipes at all’ … I’m gonna call shennanigans on that. I can use whatever collection of ingredients I happen to stumble on w/out having to ask for permission.

IMO, it’s courteous (and good networking) to link back to places where you found inspiration, but as far as having to ask permission to use a recipe … I think that’s a bit beyond. I wouldn’t ask permission to cook it – I won’t ask permission to write about cooking it.

@danny Thanks, definitely courteous to ask another blogger for reposting and of course with an link back and attribution.

@kara – so that means if I want to feature another recipe on my blog post(either from the Internet or a book), I would have to paraphrase the narrative (ie the instructions,/directions, not the list of ingredients), correct? If I change the measurements, is it technically my own, but “inspired by” the original author? When would I use the phrase, “adapted by”?

I would have to paraphrase the narrative (ie the instructions,/directions, not the list of ingredients), correct?
Correct!

If I change the measurements, is it technically my own, but “inspired by” the original author? When would I use the phrase, “adapted by”?
There is no legal requirement to use the phrase “inspired by” or “adapted by”. It’s totally up to you. The list of ingredients can’t be copyrighted, so just by using the ingredients, you’re not really “adapting” anything. You’re just cooking and writing about what you cook.

Now I personally think it’s nice to give a shout out to what inspires you – if you find a particular recipe on a particular blog, then go ahead and link back to it and say that you adapted this person’s recipe. Or that you were inspired by it.

Ok, as an example, I’m about to blog about making pate. I searched 5 or 6 different recipes and combined them to come up with my recipe. But pate is pretty generic – liver, some kind of oil, cognac, onion or shallot, etc. So I’m not going to reference or link to any one recipe. I’m just going to write up what I did. Period. I wasn’t inspired by anyone, I didn’t use any particular recipe, I just made pate. Most of hte recipes on my site fall into this category – Chimichurri sauce, same thing. I wanted to make it, looked up a half-dozen different recipes, then made it from a compilation of various recipes. No credit or attribution to anyone.

On the other hand, here’s a recipe that I used from Gordon Ramsay’s “The F Word” and I gave credit where credit was due and then said I adapted the recipe slightly:
http://www.karacooks.com/2009/08/meatballs-and-sauce/

Here’s one from the Dorie Greenspan book that I made EXACTLY by her recipe – notice that I didn’t publish her recipe, which is hers, but instead I linked to her book and said that the recipe can be found there:
http://www.karacooks.com/2009/05/twd-chipster-topped-brownies/

Here’s one for you where I realized after I made it that I was totally unconsciously influenced by Ree (Pioneer Woman) so I linked back to her site and gave her an attribute:
http://www.karacooks.com/2009/04/maccheese/

IMO, once you get outside the legalities of it, it’s all about treating people the way you’d want to be treated. I don’t expect anyone to give me a link if they see lasagna on my site and decide to go make lasagna from an old family recipe or even to make one from Joy of Cooking or whatever. If they make the exact same lasagna that I made, then it would be nice for them to say “hey I saw this on Kara Cook’s site and it really made me want to make one of my own” … but even so, I wouldn’t be upset if they didn’t. The only thing that would upset me is if they copied my recipe word for word or used my images .. then we’d have an issue.

Wow, Kara, really appreciate your detailed response. It’s all very clear to me now!

Oh btw, I really like your step-by-step photos!

Glad I could help and thanks!

I must take a bit of an exception to your analysis Kara. If you look at five or six recipes and then make up your own, aren’t you inspired by those recipes?

This is an age old discussion but one I think will never have an etched in stone policy. It is impossible to attribute a recipe like this:

inspired by looking at six recipes from Joy of Cooking, The Pioneer Woman, Jacques Pepin Techniques, etc.

But there are only so many lists of ingredients and only so many ways to make a sauce. Almost no cookbook authors credit anyone with bechamel, mayonnaise, etc. but they surely don’t reinvent the wheel each and every time.

I must take a bit of an exception to your analysis Kara. If you look at five or six recipes and then make up your own, aren’t you inspired by those recipes?
No. I may have researched a recipe I want to make and used them as a jumping off point, but they in no way “inspired me” to make something.

If I read a Pioneer Woman blog post on cinnamon rolls and go “wow that looks great! I need to make those!” then I was inspired by that post and recipe.

If I’m sitting around the house going “Hmmm … cinnamon rolls sound good. Let me see what kind of recipe I can find.” Then those recipes didn’t “inspire” me to anything. All they did was provide a resource for me to use to cook from.

Not arguing the point, but that sounds like semantics to me. Inspiration is inspiration, however you so choose to define it. However, in the spirit of that, I think it should be (semantically) clear than there is a difference between “inspired by” and “adapted from.” I find inspiration from the bajillions of recipes posted on my RSS feed via individual blogs, Tastespotting, Food Gawker and just plain rambling through the Internet. Often, I adapt those recipes and post them – with credit in some form or fashion.

@karacooks said:
No. I may have researched a recipe I want to make and used them as a jumping off point, but they in no way “inspired me” to make something.

That would be, in my definition, inspiration and adaptation. I’ve got a Martha Stewart recipe for her traditional sugar cookies in front of me as we speak – tweaked, of course, because the recipe verbatim didn’t work for me at all. Whereas the recipe from @nestlefoodie that’s a tweak on Toll House’s Original recipe for chocolate chip cookies is perfect for me, and not tweaked at all.

Aside from all that, I still agree with Kara as to the general spirit of this post: treat others as you would like to be treated. Also, IMO, a recipe that has been published deserves special consideration when reposting. Others may disagree, but to me, anything that costs money to get (somehow, whether it’s an ebook paid via PayPal or a hardback bought at Borders) should definitely be paraphrased, if posted at all. Most of the time if it’s in a cookbook and I’m using the recipe verbatim, I won’t post the recipe itself, but link to Amazon, or at the least the author’s site (like Shauna’s or Dorie Greenspan’s). If they think it’s okay, I can go with that. But I definitely don’t want to get into any copyright violations or the like, just because I’m posting published content.

Just an FYI, anything that has been published in a blog is just as protected by copyright as something published in a book or magazine or ebook.

my personal policy (based on a lot of research online, and my background in law) is to always attribute the source. i generally use “adapted from” as i think “inspired by” gets into muddy waters. the only time i don’t attribute a source is if i completely made up the recipe on my own, or if i looked up the recipe in a book but then completely changed it, i.e. substituted over half the ingredients, changed the cooking method, basically made it a completely different recipe.

Not arguing the point, but that sounds like semantics to me.
How is it semantics? How was I “inspired” by a recipe if I suddenly got a craving for something and went and looked up recipes for it?

But back to the topic … I want to reiterate that just because something is free doesn’t mean it isn’t protected by copyright. If something is published on the web, that counts as “published” for the purposes of copyright. You can’t say “well it was free” or “well it was on the internet”. You should assume that anything and everything you see/read/hear is copyrighted unless you’re specifically told it isn’t.

This follow up question is “inspired” by Jennifer’s original question. tehehe

Who do you credit if you saw the recipe on friend’s blog but she gives credit to a different source? Do you credit both blogs, friend’s blog, original blog?

To answer my own question: I find myself crediting where *I* found the recipe (ie friend’s blog) b/c I figure whoever sees it on my blog can find my friend’s blog and if they want the original source can get it off friend’s blog. Wrong or right. That’s what I do.

Your turn.

You know what I’ve been doing – if there’s a recipe already posted on another blog which I cooked or modified and feel like blogging about (and please keep in mind that I am new and green to blogging myself), I don’t re-post it – I simply link back to it, with a picture of my own, and also write about modification that I made if any. For instance, I combined Ree’s amazing baked fudge with David Lebovitz’ idea to add dulce de leche to brownies – the results were wonderful, so I linked back to both recipes and wrote about the few modifications that I made. The other time I linked back to a wonderful Azeri soup Kelekosh over on AZCookbook.com, and I just posted my own picture, added a link to the recipe, didn’t re-write the recipe, just wrote about my (minor) changes. I didn’t ask the authors, since I didn’t copy their recipes. It’s more of a promotion for them than something for me – I just wanted to share with people how amazing those recipes were.