Where My Recipes Come From and My Personal Policy in Recipe Sharing
Pirating people’s articles and recipes on-line is a large problem. A faithful reader recently sent me a link to another site who had republished my article and recipe for my coconut milk tonic., as their own. Slightly frustrating, to say the least! But I know it’s not uncommon.
But as frustrating as that incident is, I know that it is quite possible to innocently be stepping over the bounds of polite bloggerhood myself. I have been putting some thought into what my policy should for my blog and considering what really serves others the best. I wanted to share what I have come up with, not because I stand in any judgment if you have a different policy. I just want to share why I have decided on what I have. There is bound to be gray area, and I may need to adjust things as time goes on, but I do think I have come up with a workable policy that will serve us all. 🙂
My Recipes
For the record, this is not a “copy and paste” site. I recently went through my archives and took down a recipe that was my one “copy and paste” recipe, because it was already published somewhere else on line. I, for the most part, share recipes that I have created in my kitchen. Some of them have been thought out during sleepless nights, some of them were inspired by ingredients in my fridge, and some of them started as someone else’s recipes and took a few turns here and a few turns there until it came out a totally different, and new recipe.
Sharing Your Recipes
As I have worked hard at experimenting with recipes and coming up with new ways of doing things in the kitchen, I have realized how frustrating it must be to other food bloggers who can spend weeks perfecting a recipe only to have it copied to numerous other blogs as soon as it’s published online (and no, that doesn’t happen to me yet!). For that reason, I have chosen not to copy any of your original recipes here, but instead provide a link to your site, if I have tried and liked your recipe. If I make any changes or substitutions, I will explain what I did differently with the link. If I make so many changes, that it’s not a possibility to do so without confusion, I will then consider posting it here, with a link to the recipe that inspired it. If anyone asks about my sharing my recipes, I would request the same courtesy to be extended to my recipes. 🙂
An example of how is this done, is my last post about Elana’s power bars. I also hope to feature some of the recipes from the recent, Nourishing Frugal Food Carnival. When I feature your recipe, I will have the same format, talking about my experience with it, including a picture and providing a link to your site.
Sharing Recipes from Cookbooks
If I get recipes from a cookbook that I feel deserve to be shared, I try to give at least a mini review of the cookbook, and always give credit to the author and book. I also choose not to share numerous recipes from the same cookbook, because it would not serve the author. If I share a recipe from a cookbook that I like, and get you interested in her cookbook, that would be serving the author. But if I “publish” half of her recipes on my blog, that is hurting her interest (not to mention being illegal).
If I have significantly changed and adapted recipes from others, I also always try to give credit due to whomever inspired my recipe.
There can be a lot of gray area with recipe sharing, but I think this will be a very workable policy for me here at The Nourishing Gourmet. I think it will serve both the readers and the bloggers that I associate with. If you are a blogger, I encourage you to consider your own policy. I think that we can make a nicer blogging sphere if we try to consider what serves each other as fellow bloggers.
I am so thankful for all of you food bloggers, and commenters here at The Nourishing Gourmet. Thank you for your input and I am always honored that anyone would even want to share my recipes! Let me know if you see in “holes” in my policy and I will try to fix them. If you have any questions, please let me know!
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I appreciate your policies…always nice to know where a blogger stands.
But, more importantly, what is that lovely raspberry concoction at the top of the page??
I found your site about a month or so ago and have really enjoyed all that I read about here. And I appreciate you stating what your policies are…it’s good to know. But just to clarify…the non-copy-and-paste applies just to recipe sharing on personal blogs, right? You’re okay with me copying the recipe from your site and then pasting it to a personal document to put in my own cookbook? I just want to make sure I understand you properly…thank you.
Erin,
It’s a recipe I am still working on a little. It’s a coconut cream base, with a raspberry sauce on top. I will share the recipe once I work out the kinks.
Jessica,
Thanks Jessica! That’s so nice to hear. And YES! Of course, copy and paste away on your home files. 🙂 I just meant with republishing online. 😉
I completely agree, Kimi! 🙂
On my own blog, I won’t put any recipe other than one I’ve made up myself. If a recipe is published elsewhere (either online or in a book), I just put a link to it.
Thanks! 🙂 I hope your travels go well.
Blessings,
Michele 🙂
I don’t know if it’s exactly the same here in France as over there, but the whole blog world is full of confusing grey areas. I do as you do. Credit must be given where due. But over here many bloggers have forgotten that a lot of blogs exist simply to be shared with family and friends and not necessarily to become popular or famous for their amazing ideas. I know myself, I started because I was constantly asked for my recipes and so I figured it would be an easy sharing device. But it threw me right in to the blog community and I found that rather frightening as there are often scandals and arguments over situations that you have mentioned. Sometimes I feel like closing shop. But then again, it is also loads of fun.
In short, you are right to be clear about your own policies.
Jane
Hi! I have this problem ALL THE TIME and it drives me crazy. I have had so many recipes ‘scraped’ from my site with no credit or link back to me whatsoever. How people have the nerve to do this is beyond me, I never could. Don’t they realise how much hard work we put in? On a positive note, I’m glad to have found your site, it seems we have a very similar approach.
I agree with Jane. I started my blog as an effort to share recipes and ideas with my mother and mother-in-law. That means that I wasn’t necessarily out to publish my own recipes, or even “publish” at all. So I have a number of recipes on my blog that are not my own, although I always give credit. I guess my approach is, “Here’s what is working for me. Maybe it would work for you too.” Lately, if I re-publish a recipe with some modifications, I try to put in a plug for the recipe author’s blog and link back to their original post. Maybe even that isn’t enough. I need to think more about this issue, especially as my readership is growing tremendously. It’s a confusingly gray area.