Beer-lord wrote:Ryan, thanks for the updates and info.
I'm curious how do you know if the recipe is original? Really, so many recipes are similar to begin with and what's to stop someone from say, putting up a Pliny Clone, giving it a name that is in no way close to it and basically, claiming that the recipe is yours?
I've got a number of recipes I've brewed over the years that I put together but never stopped to even check if it resembles any other recipe out there.
Best of luck to you on your endeavors.
Sure - that's a common question I get. Heck, I suppose I should just post a FAQ on the site, eh? haha
The recipes will be screened through the same sort of tools that college professors screen term papers through. It's actually really easy to spot direct rip-offs in an automated fashion, so that will keep the plagiarism down for sure. As far as small tweaks and changes? That's a bit of a gray area, but my personal feelings are if you've taken a recipe and put your own spin on it, you've added something original to it and its ok to call it yours. I think also the home brewing community is proud of their original creations and they kind of self police when someone does try to say "Hey look at this new IPA I made. It's call Bliny the Belder." That's usually shamed out of existence pretty quickly
I suppose it's worth mentioning as well that strictly speaking, you can't copyright a recipe. Nor can you copyright/patent a common production process. So really, its not actually illegal to represent someone else's recipe as your own. Just a super dick move. And something we will not tolerate as moderators.
Anywho, the TLDR on the whole question is we'll have a very public frowny face regarding plagiarism, tools in place to screen the most obvious copies out, and we'll feature the folks doing the best original work.
Hope that helps!
-Ryan