Though U.S. copyright laws cover a range of creative materials, little protection is offered to those whose recipes are passed off by others as their own, reports The New York Times.
Among the people who were surprised to learn this was Rux Martin, a cookbook editor who noticed something familiar on the cover of a women’s magazine: vanilla cupcakes decorated to look like corn-on-the-cob. They were nearly identical to those featured in “Hello, Cupcake!” a bestselling cookbook that she had edited. The accompanying recipe gave no credit to authors Alan Richardson and Karen Tack.
“It was so specific, down to the corncob holders,” Tack told The New York Times. “It wasn’t a twist on it. It was just like ours.”
After seeking acknowledgement from the magazine and getting no response, Martin was told by her publisher’s lawyer that little could be done.
“He said the wording on the method isn’t the same, there is no similarity on the headnote — tough luck,” said Martin.
There is little recourse for cookbook writers who believe that their work has been plagiarized. “It is more of an ethical issue than it is a legal issue,” said Lynn Oberlander, a media lawyer in New York City. Full Story
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