It seems as of late a lot of people are copying recipes, ideas and classes etc.  It has been sad to watch people battle things out, pointing fingers at people, right or wrong. What happened to our ethics?  Inventors of products spend enormous amounts of time and money to properly and safely creating products for us.  Money is spent on copyrights as well as patents and having products tested to comply with food safe regulations.  What is scary however, besides people copying things and the legal battles that will arise from them, there are dangers.

For example, in speaking to the inventor of DECOgel®  I pointed out to her people are attempting to copy her recipe and publish it for the public to use.  She informed me of the dangers that go beyond the risk of being sued for copyright infringement.  For food, specialty foods that are stable at room temperature, there are preservatives that are added to keep people safe when consuming them.  People who copy recipes and share them publicly, not only run the risk of a huge legal battle, but more importantly and quite frightening they run the risk of poisoning people. Food items that stay at room temperature have specific preservatives to keep the product stable.  Without the proper ingredients, they run the risk of making people sick  I imagine when people try to save a few pennies the risks can be high.  The cost of a product includes so many things.  People complain when they feel a price is higher then they feel it should be and they think that they can replicate it cheaper. But there is more than meets the eyes and if its too good to be true to copy something cheaper, there is a reason it is cheaper, because it is not an exact copy. 

So if ethics doesn't stop you from doing what is right, perhaps one should be deterred from copying peoples hard work with the risk being sued, or the fact that it's one of the Ten Commandments, "Though shall not steal," but if all that doesn't stop people from copying things then one should seriously consider the dangers that you are putting people in by not really understanding what food scientists create in their food safe products.

I would imagine if its out there on the internet someone is always going to have a stab at a bit of DIY?

I'm not sure getting sued carries quite the same threat it used to unless people are calling their own creations a similar name to the TM variety but are simply offering an alternative way of going about things...like all the lace made out of sugar and fondant tutorials on you-tube etc, or of course Disney images?