Copyright for Recipes

Copyright is always an important question, especially when running a website with user contributions. Fortunately, copyright for recipes seems to still follow common sense. Here’s what the US copyright office has to say about the subject:

“Mere listings of ingredients as in recipes, formulas, compounds, or prescriptions are not subject to copyright protection. However, when a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions, or when there is a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook, there may be a basis for copyright protection.”

Here is an article that goes into more detail about the subject: Recipe Attribution
To summarize: Attribute wherever you can. Give credit where credit is due. If you have links to a website, use them.

What does this mean for this website? This website is using recipe micro formats to be better visible to search engines. Everything that is framed within these micro format is considered to be a listing and therefore can’t be copyrighted. The surrounding text and images as well as any non-recipe articles are copyrighted by the owner of this website and the authors contributing to it. If in doubt, send us an email, use the contact form on the web page or leave a comment.