Hacker News Reader

Comment by danparsonson | Hacker News Reader

I agree that we should think about whether or not it's better to let the past go and just enjoy experiences during their time rather than expecting them to be around forever, but I think your tiramisu example actually makes the opposite point - recipes like that are in the public domain and there will always be kitchens if you want to make one, whereas an online game server is a closed system that disappears if it's shut down. If companies would move services into the public domain when they don't want to run them any more, then the point becomes moot - if some community wants to setup their own tiramisu server to keep that cake alive, they should be allowed to.

View on HN

While recipes are not copyrightable, they are not automatically public either. A restaurant can consider its recipes trade secrets, and sue any employee that discloses them and win. Even photographing the chef's recipe book or something as an outside person would be punishable via trade secret laws. Famously, Coca Cola's recipe is supposed to be a closely guarded secret, for example.

So, while of course there are many widely known and available tiramisu recipes, a specific recipe from a specific restaurant is not necessarily so. Just in passing, this is something that many people who wish for an end to software copyright forget: the alternative to copyright is not at all free public software, it is trade secret Linux "recipes".

This is a valid point, and I agree company data should be forced to become public under specific conditions.

Now to get back to the tiramisu part, I think what makes it delicious in some restaurant is either obfuscated (e.g. the chef has a specific way to process some of the steps, or use some benign undisclosed ingredient). Or it's based on a specific ingredient that won't be available to anyone seeking it. For instance the coffee they use come from the chef's own farm, or they grind it a specific way that only works with their machinery as they haven't gone public about it.

In many ways I think the generic recipe of most games is widely available: if we gave you a team and a few billion dollars, you could probably make a generic Fortnite clone in less than a year. But would it be as good as what Epic's team is providing right now ? probably not ? (no offence)

I disagree with you about restaurants, there aren’t really any secret ingredients etc… The main difference is skill, not many people have the skills to actually replicate a tiramisu as good as that specific famous shop. But someone who is really skilled absolutely can

Reply on news.ycombinator.com