Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Food taste 'not protected by copyright' rules EU court

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 90 posts

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

#81

Post by qaminsod »

mygo wrote: post #31
qaminsod wrote: post #28

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. 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.

What you perceive as agreement and/or similarities in perception, is just your perception. Furthermore it says nothing about how much we can agree on and understand.

Sure, you could list a finite number of things humans perceive in a similar way, based on your own perception, but what about the possibly infinite number of things that humans don't perceive the same way or agree on?

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

#82

Post by fulafel »

Tor3 wrote: post #72
tomtompl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU != Europe though

Not sure why you were downvoted. EU isn't all of Europe, for what it's worth. There are around 50 sovereing states in Europe, while EU has 28 members (plus a couple of EFTA states).

Additionally, not all EU territories are part of Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU_OCT_and_OMR_map_en.png

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

#83

Post by mygo »

qaminsod wrote: post #81
mygo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What you perceive as agreement and/or similarities in perception, is just your perception. Furthermore it says nothing about how much we can agree on and understand. Sure, you could list a finite number of things humans perceive in a similar way, based on your own perception, but what about the possibly infinite number of things that humans don't perceive the same way or agree on?

> Sure, you could list a finite number of things humans perceive in a similar way

My entire thesis is that people may perceive things differently. Go re-read everything I wrote and tell me where I said people perceive similarly.

There exists a difference between perception and interpretation. Perceptions are peculiar to the individual. Interpretations can be agreed upon between individuals. There may be things in this world that we can’t even perceive, but our interpretations are based upon observations that are consistently repeatable.

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

#84

Post by euyyn »

contravariant wrote: post #79
tantalor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that a stronger argument? The reason you aren't allowed to hunt unicorns is that they don't exist, not that they are sentient creatures.

Not being able to enforce a law is a pretty weak argument. Hunting unicorns isn't the best comparison as that one would be fairly easy to enforce. If you're more concerned with the unenforceability than the consequences of enforcing a law then something has gone wrong. Going back to your example, a law against hunting sentient creatures would make sense regardless of the fact that establishing sentience is a hard phi…

Not being able to enforce a specific aspect of copyright law led in the 80's to pretty much all countries having to reform their laws.

When home VCRs became commonplace, creating an automatic copy of a broadcast was still illegal. Some German high court ruled that people's right to privacy in their own homes trumped law enforcement's interest in enforcing copyright, so the law was unenforceable in those cases. Hence was born the exemption for "copies for private use", and the related "tax" applied to sales of VCRs (and later on, blank CDs and DVDs) that was used to pay off author associations.

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

#85

Post by qaminsod »

mygo wrote: post #83
qaminsod wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you perceive as agreement and/or similarities in perception, is just your perception. Furthermore it says nothing about how much we can agree on and understand. Sure, you could list a finite number of things humans perceive in a similar way, based on your own perception, but what about the possibly infinite number of things that humans don't perceive the same way or agree on?

> Sure, you could list a finite number of things humans perceive in a similar way My entire thesis is that people may perceive things differently. Go re-read everything I wrote and tell me where I said people perceive similarly. There exists a difference between perception and interpretation. Perceptions are peculiar to the individual. Interpretations can be agreed upon between individuals. There may be things in thi…

Replace 'perception' with 'interpretation' and my comment still applies. Interpretation can be thought of as part of perception or vice versa depending how you look at it. If you define interpretation as some stage of perception/observation that humans agree on then the statement 'interpretations are agreed upon by individuals' is a truism that doesn't really mean anything.

Nothing is truly repeatable because we don't have the ability to perform truly controlled experiments - we can't control time for example.

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

#86

Post by mygo »

qaminsod wrote: post #85
mygo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, you could list a finite number of things humans perceive in a similar way My entire thesis is that people may perceive things differently. Go re-read everything I wrote and tell me where I said people perceive similarly. There exists a difference between perception and interpretation. Perceptions are peculiar to the individual. Interpretations can be agreed upon between individuals. There may be things in thi…

Replace 'perception' with 'interpretation' and my comment still applies. Interpretation can be thought of as part of perception or vice versa depending how you look at it. If you define interpretation as some stage of perception/observation that humans agree on then the statement 'interpretations are agreed upon by individuals' is a truism that doesn't really mean anything. Nothing is truly repeatable because we don'…

> Replace 'perception' with 'interpretation' and my comment still applies.

You can’t just go around changing words all willy nilly. Language is a group effort and different words have different meanings.

> Interpretation can be thought of as part of perception or vice versa depending how you look at it.

Nope. Interpretations are based on perceptions. We’re talking about perception in the physical sense. Like seeing, smelling, etc. I can’t teach you how to perceive any more than I can make a blind man see. But when you perceive what I perceive to be a red light, we can both interpret it to mean “stop”. In this country, if you want a drivers’ license you better adopt that interpretation.

> Nothing is truly repeatable because we don't have the ability to perform truly controlled experiments

The scientific method has been used very reliably and predictably to solve very big problems. It’s all based upon repeatable observations. And you’re right, we’re never 100% certain about everything, that’s why the body of work continues to improve over time.

> If you define interpretation as some stage of perception/observation that humans agree on

I said that interpretations can be agreed upon by individuals. You can also have your own interpretations that nobody else agrees with. I’m pretty sure Tarzan has his own interpretations of his perceptions. But in society we have decided to arrive at similar interpretations to many things so that we can function. You know? to prevent people with drivers licenses from obliviously running red lights and crashing into you and breaking every bone in your body, etc.

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

#87

Post by qaminsod »

mygo wrote: post #86
qaminsod wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace 'perception' with 'interpretation' and my comment still applies. Interpretation can be thought of as part of perception or vice versa depending how you look at it. If you define interpretation as some stage of perception/observation that humans agree on then the statement 'interpretations are agreed upon by individuals' is a truism that doesn't really mean anything. Nothing is truly repeatable because we don'…

> Replace 'perception' with 'interpretation' and my comment still applies. You can’t just go around changing words all willy nilly. Language is a group effort and different words have different meanings. > Interpretation can be thought of as part of perception or vice versa depending how you look at it. Nope. Interpretations are based on perceptions. We’re talking about perception in the physical sense. Like seeing,…

> You can’t just go around changing words all willy nilly. Language is a group effort and different words have different meanings.

If you're going to argue semantics, then at least start with some definitions for the words you're arguing about. Your definition of perception as just the sensory input and interpretation as a conclusion based on this perception is not the only way or even the common way to use the words in this context.

For example:

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapt...

> Perception refers to the set of processes we use to make sense of the different stimuli we’re presented with. Our perceptions are based on how we interpret different sensations.

and

> Perception: The organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information

> The scientific method has been used very reliably and predictably to solve very big problems.

When you say 'very reliably and predictably' what does that actually mean? What does 'very' mean? Do we have a way of objectively measuring these things?

> But in society we have decided to arrive at similar interpretations to many things so that we can function.

'Decided to arrive at' and 'arrived at' are not the same thing and also depend on your 'interpretation' of society. An electron doesn't decide to behave similarly to other electrons even if it does so, for example.

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

#88

Post by shakna »

AstralStorm wrote: post #77
shakna wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda, sorta, but not in the way most people think. > Copyright does not protect information about the ingredients or cooking methods. > It is not an infringement of copyright to watch someone prepare a dish and write down the ingredients and method in your own words. What's copyrighted, is the word-for-word original reference. If you reword it, then that's free to disseminate. It isn't what people think of as a reci…

Not exactly just minor rewording because you could still be in breach. You need to make major modifications. Patenting an innovative recipe is perfectly allowed though, including design patents of the innovative look of the item. This kind of cheese is not considered innovative enough though. If it's distinguishable enough, you can also trademark the thing.

> Not exactly just minor rewording because you could still be in breach. You need to make major modifications.

Again, only kinda. Techniques, styles, methods, ingredients, timings, quantities are all not covered by your copyright.

A bare-bones recipe would likely not be covered by copyright, as it has nothing in it that is copyrightable. Only when you expound on reasoning of methods, or cautions do you start to get things that can be copyrighted.

---

> Patenting an innovative recipe is perfectly allowed though, including design patents of the innovative look of the item.

I'm not sure what has given you that idea. Generally speaking, in Australia, a process that creates an edible item, is not patentable. These are set out as non-patentable:

> Capable of being used as a food or medicine and is a simple mixture of known ingredients (section 50(1)(b)(i))

> Is produced by mere admixture (section 50(1)(b)(ii))

Unless the process itself is inventive, and involves techniques out-of-reach of the average person, it probably is not patentable.

However, you can trademark items that are not fit for the patent office, that has a lesser set of requirements.

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

#89

Post by tomtompl »

Tor3 wrote: post #72
tomtompl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU != Europe though

Not sure why you were downvoted. EU isn't all of Europe, for what it's worth. There are around 50 sovereing states in Europe, while EU has 28 members (plus a couple of EFTA states).

I'd love to know as well.

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

#90

Post by matteuan »

amelius wrote: post #76
matteuan wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Centuries of culinary arts disagree with your statement. Craftsmanship and creativity are required to create new dishes in the same degree to other other arts. Imo we should use common sense to distinguish between basic preparations and elaborate foods.

Problem is that "common sense" is not easily encoded in law.

That's why judges should be interpret the law.
Post reply on HN