Q: Is taking just the ingredients and basic steps of a recipe from a website illegal? I thought it couldn't be copyrighted.
I want to train an AI model on highly-rated recipes. For example, can I take recipes from the website Food.com, if I just take the ingredients they used, the basic facts like time, allergies, etc, and the basic recipe steps? I was under the impression that if I don't take any personal writing, like the beginning paragraph in a blog before the actual recipe, then it wouldn't be against any copyright laws or tos.
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A:
The legal status of recipe copyright is nuanced. While you're correct that basic ingredients lists and standard cooking procedures generally cannot be copyrighted, the unique expression and creative elements of a recipe can be protected by copyright law.
When collecting recipes from Food.com or similar sites, you should check their Terms of Service carefully. Even if ingredient lists aren't copyrightable, mass scraping of content might violate their terms. Additionally, many recipe sites include protected elements like photos, detailed descriptions, or unique preparation methods that go beyond basic steps.
For your training dataset, you could focus on collecting only the bare factual elements: ingredients, basic preparation steps, and nutritional information. However, you should consider seeking permission from the website owners or exploring recipe databases that explicitly allow data collection for machine learning purposes. You might also want to look into public domain recipe collections or create original recipe data through collaboration with chefs and food professionals.
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