Recipe Copyrights

It’s pretty common within the online cooking community to see recipes from cookbooks posted in blogs. I’ve never really done this because I didn’t know if it was legal.  Especially now that I’m posting my own recipes on this website, I want to know exactly what is copyrighted and what isn’t.

In the footer of this site I state that all recipes, patterns, and photos are my own and ask that people ask permission before reposting them. However I know there are already sites that have, although at least they have credited them to me.

I did a bit of searching and I found a page on the US Copyright Office’s website dealing with recipes.
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html

The key part of this page is this

“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.”  – US Copyright Office

My interpretation is that if you write out a recipe verbatim, you may be violating the copyright. However using the ingredient list and writing your own version of the directions would circumvent any possible copyright protection.  From what I’ve read, it also seems very unlikely that anyone would go after someone for reprinting a recipe.

So I guess what I’ve learned is that I probably can post recipes with impunity, but since it seems most everything is already on the web I’ll probably just link to another site that does. Just to be safe.