Talk:Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service
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[edit] Recipe is not copyrightable?
Do we have a citation for the claim that a recipe is not copyrightable? I don't believe it. Why is a recipe not copyrightable, while software (which is just a recipe) is? I don't see why devising a recipe has any less creativity than, say, devising a poem. --P3d0 14:23, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
- See Publications Int'l v Meredith Corp., 88 F.3d 473 (7th Cir. 1996), holding that individual recipes were not copyrightable; copyright protection could only extend to an entire recipe book as a compilation. One clarifying point: the recipes at issue in that case lacked "expressive elaboration upon either of these functional components [of listing ingredients and directions for combining them], as opposed to recipes that might spice up functional directives by weaving in creative narrative." Id. at 480. In other words, anything superfluous to the functionality of the recipe could be copyrightable, but not whatever it is that makes the recipe a functioning recipe.
- This follows in part from 17 U.S.C. § 102(b), which states that "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." A recipe is a process or procedure, and its list of ingredients a statement of facts.
- I tend to view software the same way as you do, but conceptual consistency isn't going to win the day here when, if nothing else, Congress has specifically addressed copyright protection for software (e.g., DMCA) but not for recipes. Postdlf 15:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
- I'd also consider the application of the merger doctrine in this context. I believe courts initially found software protectable because they believed the function it performed could be arrived at through any number of code combinations—the code chosen was therefore creative rather than necessary. On the other hand, changing the ingredients or directions of a recipe may keep it from functioning as that recipe. Postdlf 15:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
- Hmm, that's a pretty good answer. Thanks! --P3d0 16:15, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
- I'd also consider the application of the merger doctrine in this context. I believe courts initially found software protectable because they believed the function it performed could be arrived at through any number of code combinations—the code chosen was therefore creative rather than necessary. On the other hand, changing the ingredients or directions of a recipe may keep it from functioning as that recipe. Postdlf 15:20, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Split-merge suggestion
I would say that everything after the first paragraph in Implications section should be moved elsewere. It might be relevent in legal world but is not relevant to this article. Copyright consequences as well as similar cases in other countries might go in the article Telephone directory, or (if long enough) in a dedicated article "Copyright on phone directories".
Publications v. Meredith, Matthew Bender v. West and all the rest are subject to their respective articles and do not need here citation beyond inclusion in a bulleted list of articles to see.
Similarly I doubt Feist v. Rural have ever mentioned any debates between the U.S. Congress and E.U., or any of the latter is basing the negotiations purely on the former! Let's keep relevant thing together but separate the barely relevant ones apart. -- Goldie (tell me) 02:50, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
