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foodie economics

Recipe for Property

Property rights are arguably one of the most important rights that keep our society functioning.  In the digital age, its getting harder to enforce non-material or Intellectual Property rights.  Stuff is copied left and right with the click of a button.

Intellectual Property rights are intended to foster an environment for people to come up with good inventions, works of art, and literature.  Theoretically, if everyone was just going to copy them, there would be little incentive for you to come up with ideas.

Critics of IP rights say that they provide an unfair temporary monopoly, and that everyone would be better off if ideas were allowed to be copied so they can also be improved.

I was thinking today about food recipes.  Its very difficult, if not impossible, to put a copyright on a food recipe.  I'm wondering, what can we learn about the exchange of recipes in the intellectual property debate?

Except for those secret recipes your grandmother keeps locked up, recipes are being copied all the time.  California Pizza Kitchen claims to have invented the BBQ Chicken Pizza, but did they really?  If they didn't, is it unfair to the person that did invent it that they are profiting from a similar recipe?  With the free exchange of recipes, I would think that we get more innovation and creativity throughout.

Comments and thoughts are welcome.

Posted Oct 8, 2008 by LordoftheFoodies | Share It

Filed under: recipes property