The Washington Post has an article on cooking, recipes, and copyright

It's highly unlikely, he said, that anyone would be sued for putting someone else's published recipe -- with or without attribution -- in a charity cookbook or posting it on the Internet where it can be disseminated to millions of cooks almost instantly. In fact, said Vaidhyanathan, an assistant professor of culture and communications at New York University, it would be unusual even to receive a nasty letter about it. "There isn't [big] money at stake."

U.S. copyright law addresses recipes, but what holds sway can be called either ethics or etiquette. Cooking is not considered inventing; rather, it evolves. Copyright law specifies that "substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions," such as a cookbook, can be copyrighted but that a mere list of ingredients cannot receive that protection.

The ethics guidelines of the International Association of Culinary Professionals focus on giving proper attribution to recipes that are published or taught. The association advises using the words "adapted from," "based on" or "inspired by," depending on how much a recipe has been revised. ("Adapted from" is the phrasing favored by The Washington Post and many other newspaper food sections, which, along with culinary instructors, enjoy "fair use" of someone's creation for the purpose of teaching, news reporting, scholarship or research.) The only time a recipe should be printed without attribution, the association contends, is when it has been changed so substantially that it no longer resembles its source.

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