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Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

bbc.com

31–40 of 90 posts

Re: Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

#31
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep you can make sense of it. Everyone can, and does. It happens every time cars stop at a red stop light. I don’t know how red looks to you, but every time you see red, you know it’s red. Even if red looks to you like green looks to me, when we both approach a red stop light we will both stop. We can be sure of that. Even though we may perceive the same red stop light differently, we can still interpret it to mean “…

> Yep you can make sense of it. Everyone can, and does. It happens every time cars stop at a red stop light. You're assuming we all agree on what stop lights, rules of the road, cars, etc. are. If you see a red stop light from your perspective, I may see what from my perspective is a yellow ball - if you were to replace some part of your 'world-interpreter' with part of mine you might see a green frog. Also, just bec…

> You're assuming we all agree on what stop lights, rules of the road, cars, etc. are.

We do. It’s called traffic school.

Even if we all perceive things differently, we can still manage to sit in the same classroom and learn to interpret them similarly.

Re: Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

#32
post #15
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On food, EU authorities don’t mess about. There is a complicated set of regulations to mark “characteristic” food, which is enforced very rigorously across the continent. The problem seems to be that such regulations mostly cover traditional foodstuffs, whereas modern industrial concoctions (like this crappy cheese) are ignored. Claiming copyright was a somewhat-clever attempt to extend protections.

The EU protected designation of origin etc. rights are effectively trademarks, so unlike copyrights or patents there's no harm to consumers. You're free to introduce competing products with the same taste under a different name, e.g. Champagne has to be produced in Champagne in France with specific ingredients and technique, but Spain produces Cava, which is almost identical.

In Australia we make "Sparkling Wine."

Re: Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

#35
post #30

It strikes me as very odd that anyone would even try argue in court that food could be compared to photography, literature, music or film.

Copyright has become the catch-all kind of intellectual property if nothing more specific is available. It's grotesque what it's become, but that's just how it is.

Re: Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

#36
post #30

It strikes me as very odd that anyone would even try argue in court that food could be compared to photography, literature, music or film.

Copyright has become the catch-all kind of intellectual property if nothing more specific is available. It's grotesque what it's become, but that's just how it is.

I agree. Some people seem fond of trying to use copyright as a tool to prevent competition, but of course that’s not at all what it was intended for.

Re: Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

#37
This is surprising since food is one of the oldest subjects of “IP” in Europe:

> [Sybaris around 700 BC] pioneered the concept of intellectual property to ensure that cooks could exclusively profit from their signature dishes for a whole year. [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybaris

Re: Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

#38
post #14

Well, different people have different taste buds, how are you going to make sure there is a universally agreed representation, of taste?

well different people have different retinas, how are you going to make sure there is a universally agreed representation, of a colored trademark =p https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=evQsOFQju08

I agree with that personally, having a trademark for a particular colour is clearly a dubious concept.

Re: Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

#40

That is not a problem. They would invent a chemical footprint IP right to cover.

Even assuming it can be specified precisely enough, they would have to ensure their own product always fell within the footprint, and if the rival product deviated even slightly from it - but not enough to taste significantly different - they would be fine.

But of course to work to do all this would be fantastically expensive in practice, which is a whole other major problem,

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