Re: [ProgSoc] software and food recipes

[James Wan <jwan@nospam.student.law.uts.edu.au>]

On Thu, 10 May 2001, alister air wrote:

> Something the non-trolls may already know - it's very unlikely that the
> chef did not derive his/her recepie from a pre-existing source
> (sauce?).  

Yeh so what? He obviously didn't reinvent the wheel, but he laboured in
the trialling and testing of his new recipe.

> I have eaten at a restaurant before, worked out what I've eaten, then
> cooked it myself at home.  By your "reasoning" I should be fined by the
> chef for copyright violations if I give someone else the recepie that I
> deduced.

Reverse-engineering the food you just ate so you can make it at home does
not constitute copyright violation you bafoon. If you somehow managed to
get the "exact" recipe from remembering what the food tasted like etc and
being able to cook it at home hours later, that is quite an exquisite
ability. But say you have this ability, and you got the exact ratios and
made an identical copy, then yes it would be copyright violation. It is
irrelevant that you did not steal the recipe in the first place.

Greed is good, that's why the original chef would want some kind of
protection from people stealing his recipe. I doubt he could care less if
someone out there could make his recipe better, out of the goodness of his
heart so the public at large can benefit from him. He's in it for
self-interest only. So get off your high horse and face commercial
reality. This chef probably isn't the greatest chef that ever lived, but
probably has this one great recipe. If he told everyone about, why would
anyone return to his place to eat when there are exactly the same options
everywhere else.
Sharing and caring are great ideals, but to convince people to do work and
not get paid for it is the major problem.


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