Cook's Illustrated and... Open Source?

I'm not sure how many of my Gentle Readers are followers generally of the food blogosphere and its rumblings.  But for the past few weeks, trouble has been rumbling between some of the Web's food blogger community and Cook's Illustrated.  The mess has been chronicled already by local food blogger/friend Maura, but the short of it is that Melissa at Alosha's Kitchen posted a set of recipes for a 4th of July menu, including her first attempt at making potato salad.  She got her recipes from elsewhere, and credited all her sources.  She also detailed modifications she'd made.  Ok so far, right?

The problem was she used a recipe from Cook's Illustrated (actually Cook's Country) as the base for her potato salad recipe.  And the folks at CI got a little upset.  I leave it to you to decide whether they're upset about their recipe being copied, modified, used, credited, a combination of the foregoing, or something else.  But they told her to take it down.  She did, but she's not particularly happy about it.  Neither are a lot of people, including Kate at Accidental Hedonist, who published, er, another potato salad recipe.  (In short, Kate thinks that a recipe cannot be copyrighted.)  There are also people this writer has spoken with personally who say they're dumping their Cook's Ill. subscription over CI's treatment of Melissa. 

The immediate answer to Melissa's dilemma seems to be not to quote their recipes exactly (which she didn't), and don't credit them with anything.  :)  But that seems an unsatisfying answer here, at least to me. 

So while I've been thinking about this event and its sequelae, I started feeling like I'd been here before.  I finally realized I was witnessing another fight between The Cathedral and The Bazaar (paper available here).  And I started thinking about this mess a little differently.

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For those of you who aren't up to reading the above links right now:  Let's say you write software.  And let's say, for your own reasons, you want to give it away: you want anyone who can get their hands on it to use it, copy it, modify it, and basically do whatever they like with it, including continuing to pass it on.  So, other people do so with your work, maybe even making their own modifications, or embedding your software in theirs.  You're all good with that.  It's what you want. 

Then TIC -- Three Initial Corporation -- grabs your software and starts doing things with it, including embedding it in their own product.  You're good with that.  They go on to sell a product with your product in it, maybe do some work on it, and maybe even charge for support for your product.  You're good with all that too.  They're adding to the usefulness of your product, and making money at the same time.  Cool.  :)

Then TIC claims copyright or patent protections for "their" product, which includes your product.  They also modify your product so that their version is incompatible with yours.  Maybe they start suing people who make their own modifications, or refuting prior art claims by saying they'd done the same work in-house first.

Not cool.  You start to wish you'd never released your software. 

Don't say this won't happen.  There are entire companies making their living off nothing but litigating this kind of issue.  Sometimes they resolve the issue between themselves by agreeing not to sue each other over offsetting patent claims.  IBM even developed a product (that IIRC, it tried to get a business method patent for) that involved a system for leasing patents among disagreeing companies involved in this kind of litigation.  I.e., they automated a process for arbitrating this kind of situation, and wanted to sell that process.

So, what do you do when you want to release your software, but want to make sure someone else doesn't co-opt it? 

You release it under an open source license.  What that basically means is that anyone can do pretty much what they want with the software except restrict in any way its propagation.  They can even sell it, sell support for it, and maybe even incorporate it into their own product.

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Whew, that was a long aside, wasn't it?  What the hell were we talking about?  Oh yeah, recipes.  Let's get back to that, shall we?  ;)

As some of you may remember, I have a love-hate relationship with Cook's Illustrated.  I love all the work they do on food, recipes, and equipment.  And I understand that, since they don't accept advertising, they have fewer options for making money than other publications.  But one of the things that bothers me is what CI does with recipes.  My thinking about Open Source is one of the things that helped crystallize my thoughts.

People have been roasting chicken, making bread, and yes, even making potato salad for as long as there've been chickens, wheat, and potatoes to eat.  They've been writing down recipes, publishing them, improving them, and sharing them for almost as long.  Occasionally they argue over where a recipe came from, or who started it.  Usually such an argument is bootless, as the origins of a recipe and its original recorder (if there can be said to be one) are lost in time's mists. 

Cook's Illustrated seems to be trying to change that.

Is anyone else annoyed by when CI publishes a recipe titled something like, say, "Ultimate Roast Turkey," but then three years later publish a new version of "Ultimate Roast Turkey"?  First off, aren't some things matters of taste?  Secondly, what happened to that first "Ultimate" recipe -- the one that I guess isn't so "Ultimate" any more?  And the big one: where did they get the idea to roast a turkey in the first place?  Did they invent that?  Did they invent the no-knead bread phenomenon, or beer-can chicken?  I don't think so. 

What Cook's Ill. is doing is taking the work of thousands of years of culinary efforts, making minor changes and testing -- pretty minor, IMO, if you consider the work that's gone before by millions of home and professional cooks, going back to the first person to spit a chicken over a fire -- and than claiming absolute right to that work. 

Their argument seems to be that since they mixed their labor into the recipe, it's theirs now. 

What do you think?

Edit: Another opinion at Tigers & Strawberries. 

Comments

[durhamfood]

CI's behavior is just arrogant. Yes, they test their recipes and give good suggestions and recommendations, often with good reasoning, but they're not a particularly creative bunch of folks - as you say, they mostly improve on old standards. Fundamentally, they run a consumerist-style magazine. They test, they don't create.

I do like CI. Most of their recipes work pretty well, but just like any cooking guide, it's fun to play with their ideas. For example, I love their brownies, but adding sea salt on top makes them special (and somewhat disconcerting to traditionalists ;) ). That's part of the fun.

All cooking should be open-source (as should all knowledge, but that's a different story). It makes no sense to claim ownership of recipes that have been around for hundreds of years simply because you concentrate experimentation on them in one place over a short period of time. Anyway, people will pay for CI regardless of whether their recipes appear online. People pay for Gourmet, despite all the recipes being posted on Epicurious, and CI is far better written, with far clearer methodology and presentation. This sort of proprietorship doesn't play in their favor.

[Phil]

Asshats is what I think.

[Seth G.]

It is true that a recipe cannot be copyrighted. A recipe is a list of ingredients and the law does not allow a list to be copyrighted. However, the procedure can be proprietary as it is someone's writing, but this is very easy to get around by changing one step or the order of steps slightly. In essence, recipes and their procedures are considered non copyrightable. I only know this because a good friend started the website KeyIngredient and I watched him/listened as he went through all the legal meanderings over two years to get it set up. I wouldn't back down to CI. And next time don't give them credit.

[Fritz]

I second the nomination for Cook' Ill to be referred to as Asshats of the Month, pathetic display of douchebaggery.

[Maura]

For example, I love their brownies, but adding sea salt on top makes them special (and somewhat disconcerting to traditionalists ;) ). That's part of the fun.

But cooking isn't supposed to be fun. It's a research project that results in empirical evidence. According to Christopher Kimball, you should cook with your brain, not your heart.

[durhamfood]

Yes, and we should all eat at El Bulli, all the time, because their electric milk has scientifically been proved to be complete fucking bullshit :)

(Yes, I went there. Again. Sorry.)

[Fran]

You have been nominated for the Brilliante Weblog Award 2008. Please check out the meme on my blog. I have been a silent reader of your blog for quite some time!

[Joe Eater]

Fran - Why, thank you. :) I think I'll pass on the meme though. But anything I can do to bring readers out of the woodwork is good. :) Where did this thing (the award) start anyway?

[mathpants]

so if I copy and paste one of their recipes but(t) append "in the butt" to each and every sentence, is that acceptable?

[Joe Eater]

Fran - I don't do memes, but thanks for the link and the plug!

mathpants - Yes, I think that would work ok, particularly for CI. :)