How does copyright protection work against recipes? For example, if I have a recipe book on cooking and I wanted to post one recipe a month in a free newsletter, could I re-write the directions and be ok?
The actual recipe can be legally protected for a certain period of time. An example would be the makers of some new drug. They protect their formula. Are you familiar with the Toll House chocolate chip recipe on the side of their chocolate chips package? It's a famous recipe that they have marketed for decades. It's a good one too. Anyway, they paid a lady a lot of money to get the rights to it. So, no you can't just take a recipe and use how you like--although many people do. It's best to seek out the owner and ask for permission. I would also think the uniqueness has something to do with it. For example, I don't think a recipe for a Root-beer float that said put two scoops of vanilla ice cream in a cup and poor root-beer in the cup would be protected. BTW, they are protected as trade secrets. I wonder if posting them removes that.