It vividly came to my attention today that a few members of Cake Central are not aware of the common courtesy involving the recipes we share on this wonderful forum.

If you take a recipe that is posted on CC and re-post it on another food/recipe site, it would be only common courtesy to give that person the credit for their recipe.

Today, I happened across a recipe on another site that was put up as their 'own' for a contest, but stating they got it from Cake Central. The person who developed that recipe should have gotten the credit for it...it was almost as if it had been 'plagiarized'.

Granted, there are many recipes out there that have no origin, but there are many on here that have involved many months, years, etc. of hard work and trials to get it 'just right'. For many of us, it is our livelihood.

Please, let us all remember to give the credit where credit is due...and if your only reason is to take from others for your own selfish reasons, then shame on you. Your mother failed you.

99% of all of the members on Cake Central truly want to help each other, whether you are newbies or old pros. We have the gift of caring. Let us gently remind ourselves of that.

Perhaps this could be better taken to pm to the person involved, as you know the name of the person.

Actually, it was not someone I recognized, but they used a recipe from a CC member as their own...so I feel everyone should be aware that we should give credit to those who post their recipe on CC...we would expect a CC member to give the proper credit on CC, so it should extend to the use of a CC recipe on other sites...especially for a contest.

It is called decency, and I feel we should all be decent to each other...it is not between someone else and me... You cannot pigeon-hole this as a private message, as far as I am concerned...it was to all CC members. You know, the "one bad apple syndrome".

I'm confused...you said they stated that they got the recipe from CC, so this person is not claiming it as their own are they?

My understanding of recipe 'owning' is that a list of ingredients is fair game--no one can lay claim legally to a certain list of ingredients. Well I'm already thinking of an exception--like the formula to Coke or something. But I mean in a recipe book, the list including the ingredients and the amounts of ingredients is generally not protected territory.

The description of how to prepare that list is where the rubber meets the road. You need to put that into your own words just like anything else you want to write.

That's my understanding of it from egullet.org. Just saying.

But I mean it sounds like they gave the origin of the recipe which is pretty up front yes?

Are you sure the person who reposted the recipe isn't the same person that posted it on CC in the first place? I only ask because a while back a CC member had entered some pictures of some cupcakes she made to a contest, only to have them disqualify her. The reason they gave her was because they said they found the same cupcake pictures on a Flickr account, but the account was her own! She proved that and she got her cupcakes re-entered into the contest.

If it's your own recipe that was reposted, then perhaps you should kindly request that the reposter mention that it was in fact your recipe.

I'd worry less about the recipe creator and more about the response that is given to many forum-ers from those who are more experienced...You can just hear their heavy sigh when they feel they just have to 'straighten somebody out' by writing something patronizing or even rude.

I agree that it's not cool to take a recipe and call it your own. However, if anyone posts a recipe on here that they've worked on for "many months, years, etc." for their livelihood, they'd be very foolish indeed if they expect that recipe not to be taken and used by others. Why else WOULD someone post a recipe here except for others to use it?

Honestly, I'm surprised the contest sponsor would even accept a recipe if an entrant said they got it from somewhere else.

VTCake...I agree with you 100%..that is a very straight forward ...good reply..that explains it all

VT--did you mean someone/s that did not respond here in this thread?

I think to be courteous a person should give proper credit, however, when I opened this post I was expecting to read something completely different. I have noticed recently that there has been some "sniping" back and forth between some of the members. This makes me sad. I know we all have our own views on things, and we are entitled to our own opinions. However, please be ever mindful that words can hurt. We are all here for a common goal and that is out love of cake and learning more about it. I worry more about words that hurt then someone not giving individual credit for a recipe. They did say it came from CC, so they weren't saying it was their own. I have done this myself, only because I knew the site it came from, but the name was not there. Sorry to take your post off on a tangen, but it has been bothering me all morning. Everyone have a blessed day.

I'd love to know of any ground-breaking ++published++ recipe that breaks the doors of baking contests wide open...

What am I missing?

cabecakes: I agree with you and it IS sad.,..with how these topics have been starting out lately by barking at people vs just taking this to the upper hand on CC b/c everyone reads these topics and people get offensive, so it's not worth even starting out these topics..

cabecakes, I totally agree with you! I just saw the post you are talking about it and it made me sad not to mention that Im just not interested in wasting my cc time, which i dont have that much time to do, reading that snippy back and forth crud.