[conspire] A different sort of open source

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Dire Red (deirdre at deirdre.net):

> Toronto chef Nick Chen-Yin compiled a free open-source cookbook with
> recipes from his colleagues across the city.
> https://opensourcecookbook.cargo.site

This 118-page book can be fetched in PDF format.  (Noted without
comment:  The above URL fetches only a blank page unless Javascript 
is enabled.)

Something I'd been pretty sure about, but just confirmed:  Food recipes
per se are conclusively ineligible for copyright, not having the
requisite properties as creative expressions.  Quoting from 
https://www.finedininglovers.com/article/copyright-trademark-patent-how-protect-recipe
(which I'm not saying is Word of God, but this accords with what I find
in other credible places):

  In the US, a landmark case on recipes was Publications International vs
  Meredith, about a book of yogurt recipes by a famous international
  brand, where the court stated: "The identification of ingredients
  necessary for the preparation of each dish is a statement of facts." So
  it seems copyright is not of much help, though Natasha Reed, copyright
  expert at the Foley Hoag LLP law firm in New York City, points Fine
  Dining Lovers the way to some exceptions: "Copyright law does not
  protect merely utilitarian articles, ideas, facts, or formulas. Since
  food is a useful article, copyright law will apply only if the food
  incorporates highly creative features that are separable (either
  physically or conceptually) from the food’s utilitarian features.

A for-instance:  I'd considered posting in various places the recipes
I'm using for home-cooking lately (and am still considering doing so),
but I wanted to make sure I wasn't committing even _technical_ copyright
violation.  Probably the first one I'd post would be Doctor Martin's Mix, 
one of Peg Bracken's famously easy and effective recipes from here _The
I Hate to Cook Book_ (first published circa 1960) -- a famous book whose
story is related here:
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/i-hate-to-cook-book

It turns out, if I posted Bracken's recipe -- or even all of them -- I
could never be assessed damages for copyright violation by even a
rapacious copyright stakeholder.  On the other hand, if I threw in a
bunch of Bracken's accompanying snark from her books (there were several
follow-on volumes), perhaps.

So, sure, an open source cookbook is great -- especially one with
careful exposition alongside the recipes.  But all the world's recipes
are already public domain and hence are one huge globally distributed 
free-to-republish cookbook already.  Selah.