I just recently came across your blog because my coeliac daughter has met a friend with ‘too many to list’ allergies and I wanted to be able to provide him (as well as the other kids) some ‘familiar to everyone’ goodies when he comes over for playdates. I, too, am not a blogger, so no worries, but your concerns have …well… raised some concerns. I was excited to test out your recipes until this post. Unfortunately, it has risen a great concern of “Oh my, I don’t want to violate any laws (and then what? Be arrested?) by trying to help a youngster simply feel like the rest of the kids when it comes to snack time and share the triumph of the ‘experience’ with my family and friends whom live out of state.”

I have enjoyed reading through your recipe list with your ‘recreations/adaptations’ of the candy bars, but I do have a question about your ‘adaptation’ of these particular recipes, such as the ‘Samoas’. I noticed you didn’t credit the original creator, yet they are titled and even recreated to look as dead on duplicates. I haven’t had an opportunity to research this, nor do I know the original creation date by the original creator, but, if the original creator of the Somoas is still alive and kicking, do you imagine him/her stewing over the idea of filing copyright infringement, or appreciating the fact that you are creative enough to extend the availability of such a wonderful concept to those whom couldn’t have enjoyed such a thing before now? (I also hate to mention this, but this world is cruel and tends to favor those who have more green $$$ than others, but how many times do you hear of a corporation ‘creating’ a product and someone saying, “Dang, I thought of that first….should’ve….could’ve….etc, etc, etc” ?? Now that you have gone through the hard work of creating an alternative to the original and posting it to the world wide web, how sad would it be if an existing, bigger snack food manufacturer were to coin in on your time and money spent getting to this point because of the enormous demand of pre-made, ready to eat right now, allergy-free products, except they’ve covered their ‘legal tracks’ because they bake it in an industrial oven and not a household oven, or they use an industrial mixer not a Vitamix ? This similar situation happened to a wonderful, well-known gluten free blogger and cookbook author, and if I remember correctly, she stated she is not entitled to compensation because of this tragic loophole. Nor did it initiate the police to go knocking on the manufacturer’s door.)

My concern stems from you mentioning a ‘set of rules’ to abide by during recipe creation and you mentioned certain actions were actually “illegal” but did not quote the source of that information. Do you mind providing a link to a source? Maybe providing a source would clear much of the confusion dust cloud, at least that I am experiencing. Such as, according to copyright law ( http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html ) “Only original works of authorship are protected by copyright. “Original” means that an author produced a work by his or her own intellectual effort instead of copying it from an existing work.” And, “Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of ingredients.” … “Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary expression—a description, explanation, or illustration, for example—that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook.” (i.e. the instructions of how to manipulate the ingredients may be copyrighted.) And for those that are really by the book … http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf, and for a great, easy-to-understand paraphrase … http://www.ehow.com/about_5397770_recipe-copyright-laws.html .

This would be ever-so helpful, as I wish not to be a confused blog reader, or an illegal one for that matter.

I do agree that it’s very rude though and annoying to find your recipe, down to the brass tacks, on some other website. A link back to your site is definitely the better way to go, or talking about a personal experience with the recipe and then linking back. The point should be to both give you the credit and the traffic as much as possible. And I find with a lot of bloggers, particularly food bloggers, if they do it wrong it’s usually not intentional and they’re very kind about adjusting the post to properly link back. It’s part of what I love about the food community. I think we have a higher percentage of just plain cool folks out here.

And I know how hard it can be to figures it all out! As I mentioned in the post I screwed up a few times myself!

I think the more I pay attention, the worse I see it happening.

I know Brittany has it worse than I do though, but I started framing it in my head as, this means I have made it because people are copying me!

I have often included you in “recipe round-ups” that I feature in my blog series entitled “What To Eat When You Can’t Eat Anything”. The posts are aimed toward those who have more allergies and sensitivities than they can count on all of their fingers and toes. Your recipes always have a secured place in these posts because they are so adaptable and friendly to those who are allergic to just about anything and “everything”.

But, I want to make sure that I am featuring you in a respectable and just way. What I do is, I feature the picture of the delectable item that you made, and then I put the recipe title (only!), along with the name of your blog. I make the title “clickable”, so when they click it they are taken straight to your blog post so they can get the recipe straight from the source (you!). I never, ever include the recipe for the dish or baked good on my blog. The only thing that appears is the picture, the title (linked) and your name.

Here’s the latest example: http://infectiousoptimism.blogspot.com/2012/01/what-to-eat-when-you-cant-eat-anything_23.html

Did I do this properly? Please let me know if I’ve got this all wrong. I appreciate you and what you do greatly, and wouldn’t want to put a damper on your fantastic efforts.

Thanks for everything!
Candice

if you are building your site daily, which you are, and spreading good karma/will, which you are, your name, and recipes will be “out there”— you can’ t be the internet police, nor would I imagine you’d want to be.

Spend time and energy making your own site the best you can— it’ll promote link sharing, and good will, both of which will be highly rewarded by Google, and the Universe.

xoxo steph

I am flattered when another blogger takes the time to re-post my recipes. But the fact is that this can be done without copying my ingredient list. They can show off their photos (or even mine). Mention the alterations they made- but not place the actual ingredient list of their website. That is stealing material for their own personal gain.

Had you taken that recipe and placed it into your own blog and said ” adapted from” and the only change you made was putting in Jules flour then- you would be in the wrong. When bloggers do this they are basically taking content that is not theirs to promote their own website.

Pinning like you did promoted only the website it came from. That was a great thing to do