Anthony Elia

All author collaborators should have a written collaboration agreement.  A good agreement can provide guidance, prevent disputes and resolve problems when they arise.  No two collaborations are alike: in each there will be a unique balance of contributions of celebrity, experience, writing skill, technical knowledge, and sweat.  And in each collaboration the parties will divide the resulting fruit of their labors differently. All collaborators should discuss and address in writing where relevant the following issues:

1) Who will have authority to make legal, business and editorial decisions?

2) How will the rights be divided in the final work and in partially completed work if the project does not go to completion?

3) How will authorship be credited?

4) How will the collaborators be compensated?

5) How will the work be divided?

6) What will happen if the project does not go as planned?

7) What happens in the event of death or disability of either collaborator?

8) Under what circumstances can (or must) the collaboration be deemed terminated?

© 2007 Anthony N. Elia

Readers of the best selling “Deceptively Delicious,” by Jessica Seinfeld (comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s wife) have noticed similarities with Missy Chase Lapine’s cookbook, “The Sneaky Chef.”  Both cookbooks teach parents how to surreptitiously serve vegetables to their picky children.  See, NYT, October 19, 2007.

From the legal perspective, recipes which consist merely of a listing of ingredients and directions on preparing them are not subject to copyright protection.  On the other hand, a recipe that is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation, directions, anecdotes, reminiscences or historical information probably will be protected by copyright.  The recipes in the “The Sneaky Chef” appear to fall into the former category. 

Finally, courts have extended protection to a compilation of recipes, as in a cookbook, irrespective of whether they are protected as individual recipes, only where a very substantial portion – or all - of the book is copied.  Protection of a collection of recipes as a compilation would not apply where only mere “similarities” between two works were asserted.
© 2007 Anthony N. Elia