Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Selling recipies

it is legal unless they are copyrighted by someone else.

Re: Selling recipies

It is legal unless the recipe is someone else's so-called intellectual property, i.e. a trade secret or covered by copyright.

Whether a recipe is a trade secret you can probably figure out; unless the person who gave it to you told you it was a secret, or you got it under circumstances where you should know that it is a secret, it probably isn't.

Copyrights are another matter. First, an author obtains a basic copyright in his original creative works without filing anything with the government and without putting that 'circle c' legend on it. These latter two steps make the author's protection more powerful, complete and certain, but they are ultimately unnecessary for the work to be protected.

HOWEVER, the copyright only protects the author's expression, not his discovery. Therefore, if I create a marvelous steak sauce that makes hamburger taste like filet mignon, the formula or recipe is NOT protected by copyright, but the way I write it up for Gourmet Magazine IS protected. So, you can take some else's ingredient list, but you can't take their special wording and description; their personal, creative expression in words is protected. So rewrite everything, and stay away from obvious secrets, and you should be okay.