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Originally Posted by mistyinca  Years ago, I used to belong to an online text-based web service called GEnie (anyone remember that one?) Anyway, we'd share recipes formatted for recipe programs. As far as copyright goes, this is what I learned:
Individual recipes are not copyrighted. Compilations of recipes are, as well as the unique stories and such that goes with it. So as far as I recall, the magic number was 3. If you were including 3 recipes from any one book, then it was copyright infringement.
If you take a so-and-so's recipe for say tuna casserole, and you have found that you don't add peas to it, but greenbeans, it is YOUR recipe now anyway. Maybe you don't add 1/4 ts black pepper, but 1/8 teaspoon. Same thing. Maybe you don't boil your noodles first, but add extra liquid to it and bake it all together--see where I'm going... 
Hope that helps, |
Mistyinca is correct. You cannot copyright a recipe. However you can trademark a recipe name like Derby Pie or Killer Brownies. In this case you can avoid the issue by changing the name of the recipe.
The rule about not including more than 3 recipes from a single cookbook is really just a rule of thumb and not a strict requirement. You can avoid the copyright issue by writing your own instructions to a recipe and not copying them directly from the source or as Mistyinca stated, change/add an ingredient. In any case you should mention where you got the recipe as a courtesy.