Oh, to be clear: I agree! Google also rewards the fluff, you can show more ads, etc But the copyright is part of the equation and it deserves a mention. Also,

Oh, to be clear: I agree! Google also rewards the fluff, you can show more ads, etc But the copyright is part of the equation and it deserves a mention. Also, part of google rankings is manual quality review, familiarity, etc. if a recipe site strongly diverges from the normal form it can confuse readers or quality rankers. The lack of copyright to a degree has influenced the form that is now industry standard.