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I think the lesson for HN readers is that if you're going to fire your best talent, make sure they document everything well ahead of time.

tacker2000 6y ago
True! At least they kept some sandwiches in the freezer to reverse engineer later
tantalor 6y ago
It's more like source code, but anyway the vendor was presumably under contract which did not include divulging the recipe. I wonder if they could have sued to recover the recipe as a "work for hire", where typically the employer is the owner of the work product. The law covers "instructional text" which sounds like a recipe to me. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf It depends on the nature of the original agreement, whether the recipe was created especially and exclusively for the event, or the vendor developed it on their own time.
- tzs 6y ago
  In the case of the original sandwich maker, Rangos, clearly not. He was making his pimento cheese and selling it in his store before the Masters ever hired him. In the case of the second sandwich maker, Godfrey, who replaced Rangos and developed his pimento cheese recipe for the Masters, probably not. First of all, work for hire concerns who owns the copyright to something and recipes are not subject to copyright. It is possible, though, that there is some expression in the way that he wrote the recipe that could be copyrighted, so let's say the Masters wants to make a work for hire argument that they own the copyright of that. To be a work for hire, something must either be (1) made by an employee within the scope of their employment, or (2) fall into one of several categories and be declared a work for hire by the parties in a written instrument signed by them. It doesn't sound like the pimento cheese provider is an employee of the Masters. He sounds more like a contractor. That would take out #1 of the two ways something could be a work for hire. As far as #2 goes, first they have to explicitly have said in their signed written contract that the expression of the recipe will be a work for hire. That seems unlikely. But let us say they did, and let us assume that the particular expression of the recipe counts as an instructional text. Let's say that means that the Masters owns the copyright on that particular expression of the underlying, uncopyrighted, recipe. So what? That just means they get to stop people from making and distributing copies of that text. It doesn't give them any power to compel someone who has a copy to turn it (or a copy of it) over to them.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    > recipes are not subject to copyright. The ingredient list and directions (process) are not copyrightable on their own, but if you add narrative text, like the history of this recipe as used at the tournament, that would work. :)
BobBagwill 6y ago
And test the recipe with relatively unskilled staff. No proper chef would ever reveal the real recipe. :-)

tacker2000 6y ago

True! At least they kept some sandwiches in the freezer to reverse engineer later

tantalor 6y ago

It's more like source code, but anyway the vendor was presumably under contract which did not include divulging the recipe. I wonder if they could have sued to recover the recipe as a "work for hire", where typically the employer is the owner of the work product. The law covers "instructional text" which sounds like a recipe to me. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf It depends on the nature of the original agreement, whether the recipe was created especially and exclusively for the event, or the vendor developed it on their own time.

tzs 6y ago
In the case of the original sandwich maker, Rangos, clearly not. He was making his pimento cheese and selling it in his store before the Masters ever hired him. In the case of the second sandwich maker, Godfrey, who replaced Rangos and developed his pimento cheese recipe for the Masters, probably not. First of all, work for hire concerns who owns the copyright to something and recipes are not subject to copyright. It is possible, though, that there is some expression in the way that he wrote the recipe that could be copyrighted, so let's say the Masters wants to make a work for hire argument that they own the copyright of that. To be a work for hire, something must either be (1) made by an employee within the scope of their employment, or (2) fall into one of several categories and be declared a work for hire by the parties in a written instrument signed by them. It doesn't sound like the pimento cheese provider is an employee of the Masters. He sounds more like a contractor. That would take out #1 of the two ways something could be a work for hire. As far as #2 goes, first they have to explicitly have said in their signed written contract that the expression of the recipe will be a work for hire. That seems unlikely. But let us say they did, and let us assume that the particular expression of the recipe counts as an instructional text. Let's say that means that the Masters owns the copyright on that particular expression of the underlying, uncopyrighted, recipe. So what? That just means they get to stop people from making and distributing copies of that text. It doesn't give them any power to compel someone who has a copy to turn it (or a copy of it) over to them.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > recipes are not subject to copyright. The ingredient list and directions (process) are not copyrightable on their own, but if you add narrative text, like the history of this recipe as used at the tournament, that would work. :)

BobBagwill 6y ago

And test the recipe with relatively unskilled staff. No proper chef would ever reveal the real recipe. :-)