This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
This year, 2020 has been so unusual and so strange. And so I don't know all the adjectives. You could probably think of some better ones, but you probably know what I mean when I'm like, "Wow, 2020, okay." Well, one of the good things about 2020, one of the things that I have very much enjoyed in the midst of all the insanity, has been hearing so many questions from listeners, hearing updates about your projects, what you're doing, how you're navigating this time, how you're thinking beyond this time, just what kind of projects you're trying to start and what are the obstacles, challenges, successes, all that kind of stuff. So thank you for being a big part of that. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is called Cytosol School. If anybody is new and just joining us, you can just jump right in. And we've got more than 1300 episodes in the archives, which you can go back to and listen to as you see fit, but you also don't need to know anything. You can just kind of pick up where we are because every day we're having different conversations all about people on the front lines of the new economy. Okay, so with that introduction, here's our question today.
When is it okay to borrow or derive creative inspiration from something you find online? And when is it maybe just stealing or plagiarism? Okay, we've got a real world example here. Love this question. Today's listener calling in from Australia has a new YouTube channel and wants to write a related ebook that features recipes for kids.
So she's wondering, can she borrow and rename recipes that she finds online? Like I said, a good question. We're gonna delve into it. Here's a message from our sponsor and then we will jump right in. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Cal Brandsmith from Sydney, Australia.
I've been listening to your show right from the beginning. I was unemployed then and then I did work in between and I'm unemployed now again. I've tried several side hustles over the years. I haven't managed to monetize them as yet. I've tried a book club and board game group.
I had some success. I've started a YouTube channel for foodie phonics lessons for children and have a few followers. Most recently I have self-published an ebook for children. My question is, am I able to use recipes that I find on the internet and rename them for my use in my book at the back so that I can use the link for readers to contact me? I look forward to your response and thanks for all the inspiration.
Cheers. [Music]
Hey Cal, thank you so much for listening. Thank you for calling in and good work on continuing to try different stuff. Sometimes it takes a while and that's okay. So I love the idea of the YouTube channel for foodie phonics lessons.
Let's talk about your question. So can you use other people's recipes essentially and kind of rename them a bit. It's a bit of a gray area because a lot of recipes are very common. So there's not a lot of difference between, let's say some standard recipes. But other recipes are created by a chef and there is proprietary work that goes into that.
So the best and safest answer is that you would need to contact the recipes author or creator for permission to use it in this way unless it's clearly something that is in the public domain. Now that said, a lot of recipes, as I mentioned, are pretty simple, okay? Are pretty simple, are pretty kind of common or just handed down over the years and such. So it may be if you're making soufflés or cassolés or something that's either complicated or somewhat unique. I was trying to think like, what is unique to Australia?
And I did some googling and I read about fairy cake, which I don't know a whole lot about even though I have been to Australia many times and love that country. But fairy cake is a thing in Australia. So anything that is complicated or somewhat unique where a chef has clearly created that recipe, then that is something you definitely shouldn't borrow, like that belongs to them. However, since so many recipes are rudimentary and copied over and over, for those, I think you'd be okay with putting your own twist on it and renaming it as you suggest. So perhaps, you know, Cal could have Cal's magical mac and cheese or farm to table foodie phonics fruit salad.
I'm just providing some names here. Feel free to borrow these, you can steal these. Or foodie phonics fairy bread. Maybe it's actually fairy bread, not fairy cake, now that I'm thinking about this more. But whatever it is, fairy bread, you call it foodie phonics fairy bread.
And you perhaps tweak the recipe a little bit. I think that's okay, that's a little bit different than just wholesale copying recipes somewhere and putting it in your own ebook. So I hope that is helpful, perhaps to Cal and somebody else out there. Listeners, if you've got a question of your own, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We're gonna talk about fairy cake or fairy bread or whatever else is on your mind.
I'm gonna be here and I hope you'll keep joining in. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Sodasleschool. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
