Malaysia Seeking to Copyright Food?

Techdirt is reporting that Malaysia seems to be jumping on the copyright/trademark bandwagon and attempting to protect the "ownership" of certain ethnic foods. Of course, this may just be a massive PR push in an attempt to grab some eyeballs. "Last year, around this time, we noted that the country of Lebanon was trying to claim that it owns hummus and other middle eastern foods, such as falafel, tabouleh and baba gannouj, and that no other country could produce them. It seems that other parts of the world are seeing the same sort of thing, as Malaysia is trying to declare that it owns popular Malaysian dishes, like nasi lemak."

Comments

no worries

[bugi]

Worry not, there will be cheap knockoffs coming out of China soon enough.

Re:no worries

[Tuidjy]

In the same way that Bulgaria, Serbia, and Belgium produce 'cheap knockoffs' of Feta cheese, but have to call it something else, because Greece has been awarded the 'copyright' by the EU?

"Appellation d'origine contrôlée" has existed for centuries, and there are plenty of sensible arguments for and against it. I would not mind seeing where Slashdot stands on that issue, but presenting what Malaysia is doing as a brand new concept is ridiculous.

Re:no worries

[GoCal92]

Actually, this is different. In the EU and US, names of food is controlled as trademarks. You can still produce sparking wine in the Napa Valley, but you can't claim it came from the Champagne region. What Malaysia is claiming is that they own the "copyright" to these food and that no one else is allowed to even produce it elsewhere. Of course, the US and EU fight over their trademarks - the US considers "champagne" (little "c") to be a semi-generic term, thus "California champagne" is o.k. Same with terms like Cheddar. And, the EU failed to recognize US designations, such as Idaho potatoes or Vidalia onions until they lost a WTO case in 2004.

Re:no worries

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

"Appellation d'origine contrôlée" has existed for centuries, and there are plenty of sensible arguments for and against it. I would not mind seeing where Slashdot stands on that issue, but presenting what Malaysia is doing as a brand new concept is ridiculous.

The problem here is that what Malaysia is doing, as described by the article linked from the article linked from the posting (grrrr), isn't in fact a form of AOC. AOC has never been applied to recipes; it has only been applied to ingredients and processed agricultural products.

In the case of an AOC, the intent is clear: if the region of Sancerre makes a remarkable wine and people seek it out as being special, it would be good to prevent winemakers not from Sancerre from labeling ultra-cheap wines as "Sancerre" and selling it for inflated prices. In the case of Malaysian recipes, on the other hand, it's not at all clear what the intent is, since it just cannot be analogous. Recipes are things that people prepare when they want to eat them, not a finished foodstuff that they buy. The closest I can stretch this analogy would be some sort of ban on preventing non-Malaysian companies from labeling frozen or instant packaged meals with the names of the Malaysian dishes, but even that just degenerates into absurdity when you try to apply it to restaurants who cook their own nasi lemak on a per-order basis.

Re:no worries

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

As a Serbian I can assure you there are lots of Feta products that are really declared as Feta.

Serbia is not part of the EU. So yeah, you can sell Serbian-made cheese in Serbia and call it "feta," but any cheese you export to the EU may not be labeled so. And if you joined the EU, unless you got a special concession about this, those cheeses you mention would have to change their labeling.

Re:no worries

[vux984]

Actually, this is different. In the EU and US, names of food is controlled as trademarks. You can still produce sparking wine in the Napa Valley, but you can't claim it came from the Champagne region.

Of course not, because that would be an outright lie. It was produced in Napa Valley, USA not the Champagne, France, so of course you can't claim it came from Champagne, France.

I think you meant that you can't call California sparkling wine "Champagne", which is true for the reason you outlined.

That said, things are getting pretty dodgy with Wine.

A current problem in BC for example is that less reputable companies are taking grapes grown in wineries in Croatia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and are shipping them to be bottled in British Columbia, Canada and are thus legally and accurately bearing labels claiming 'bottled in the Oakanagan, British Columbia'.

Of course, since the grapes aren't actually grown in the oakanagan, the whole thing is a complete farce. But these wines are ending up on "BC wine lists", and being sold out liquor stores as "BC Wines" I don't know offhand but I wouldn't be surprised if California's good name is being similarly tainted by this practice.

Re:no worries

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem isn't with recognizing some geographic source names- the problem is turning those names into enforceable local monopolies when they don't represent anything to the consumer. Here, "Washington apples" or "Idaho potatos" or "California raisins" all provide us with origin information without overstepping into limiting how other producers can market apples, potatos, or raisins. I pray that "Feta" really means a small Greek island to Europeans, because here, it means the cheese. Nobody is going to reach for "crumbly sheep and goat milk cheese aged in brine" rather than "feta cheese". What's worse is the geographic origin turns this understanding on its head: make another style of cheese in Feta (say "Cheddar") and suddenly it too is Feta cheese. Flip to the people in England making sheep cheese and calling it Cheddar and you have these perfectly useful generic terms now incapable of promoting your own products or anyone else's.

Consumer understanding should dominate these findings. If people think swiss cheese means dry cheese with holes in it, great, let anyone use it. If people think that means cheese made in Switzerland, sure, take that term away from everyone else. The reality, I believe, is that mostly consumers use these words (and assume producer's uses of these words) reflect style of product rather than geographic origin.

Re:no worries

[nospam007]

So yes, it would be illegal in Europe, for someone to make his own white cheese, even if he is using goat milk (i.e. the proper procedure), and call it Feta.

I make my own cheese, but I don't name it anything, I eat it.

Re:no worries

[milage]

Similar thing in New York with Sapporo beer. It says Export on the can but when you read it closely it is made in, and imported, from Canada rather than Japan..... Not quite the same!

Re:no worries

[raju1kabir]

What Malaysia is claiming is that they own the "copyright" to these food and that no one else is allowed to even produce it elsewhere.

I don't see that in TFA. It just says that they want some the dishes to be declared as "Malaysian".

Which is sort of stupid, since almost everyone in Malaysia with a famous recipe is a relatively recent immigrant - only the indigenous people have been around for any significant amount of time and the government treats them like shit.

But it's not particularly aggressive or contentious. Just a typical Malaysian government waste of time.

Depends on the country and/or food.

[blcamp]

I don't think anyone is going to challenge Scotland's copyright of haggis.

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Perhaps not, but to be on the safe side, I advise Scots to patent the genome of Haggis scoticus.

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[MrHanky]

Or, rather, the Champagne district's right to Champagne and the Cognac district's right to Cognac.

There's nothing unique in the attempt to protect the designation of origin.

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[wastedlife]

According to that article, the U.S. does not generally recognize protection of the designation of origin, unless it is for products made within the U.S. Apparently you can have American champagne, but vidalia onions can only come the Vidalia, Georgia region.

However, I'm pretty sure protection of designation of origin is not covered under copywrite laws.

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[Abcd1234]

Oh come on, give haggis a break already! It's really not that bad, and in fact has been described as having "an excellent nutty texture and delicious savoury flavour" (source of source)... 'course, as with all foods, it'll vary based on who made it.

I urge you, give haggis a chance! I actually rather like it! Black pudding, OTOH... *shudder*

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[Zocalo]

It's stupid because of the bit about the recipe and lack of any concession to where ingredients are sourced or whether the production process used is identical.

As an example, historically (and we're talking at least a thousand years, since it gets mentioned in the Domesday Book) Cheshire cheese was manufactured by the same process in no less than five counties; Cheshire itself, plus Denbighshire, Flintshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire. The first two of those are in Wales, while the latter two and Cheshire itself are in England. According to the EU rules, only Cheshire cheese which is manufactured in Cheshire itself is now entitled to the name, despite all of the historical precedent to the contrary.

Re:Depends on the country and/or food.

[zevans]

...which in itself no longer has any meaning given the amorphous nature of Cheshire's borders. The majority of Cheshire farms have been in Manchester or Merseyside at least once in the last 40 years (never mind the last 400.)

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[account_deleted]

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Indonesia is very ticked off

[Vinegar Joe]

Because Malaysia has been claiming certain Indonesian dances are Malaysian.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/09/16/issue-%E2%80%98betawi-group-threatens-harass-malaysians%E2%80%99.html

RMS

[K. S. Kyosuke]

RMS has been making recipe analogies (with respect to free software) for decades. Finally, the until-recently-lawless world of cooking is catching up with the highly developed and modern law-abiding world of software. That will teach our bearded gourmet! There's no free(-as-in-speech) lunch!

Re:RMS

[fluffy99]

I think you just described all the flavors of Linux! They all follow the same general recipe, but they are all slightly different after baked/compiled. One company likes to add a splash of gnome, the other likes kde, etc. Naturally this plays hell at a banquet when the guests see the bowl labeled with the name of the dish but have no idea if their utensils will work quite right with that particular homemade dish. They prefer the storebought box of mac-n-cheese that tastes the same every single time and they don't need to worry if their fork is somehow incompatible with todays version of the corn kernels in the dish.

Egads, I think I abused the hell out of that analogy. Should I have done a car analogy instead? :}

(c) -- seriuosly

[KingPin27]

I hereby copyright the idea of putting chocolate pieces into a cookie -- pizza fillings inside pastry dough available for microwave or oven bake -- and the idea of diet sodas.
let's see how this goes over

Surprising

[imkonen]

It sounds a little silly, but how different is it from other copyrights? I think most people would agree that culinary arts are as as much an exercise in creativity as visual or audio art. A particular combination of available flavors creates whole greater than the sum. Certainly copyrighting a recipe doesn't seem any different to me than a piece of software code. I guess the weak part in Malaysia's claim is that they seem to be trying to retroactively pull public domain works (recipes that have been around for generations) back into the copyrighted realm, but even that is nothing new. If they can get back the rights to their ethnic food, it seems like Beethoven's descendants should be able to continue collecting royalties on his works.

Re:Surprising

[cpt kangarooski]

It sounds a little silly, but how different is it from other copyrights?

Copyrights cover creative works; it's patents that cover useful arts. Food is rendered uncopyrightable due to utility. Methods of preparing food, i.e. recipes, are uncopyrightable as well. While inventive chefs could seek patents, and some do, it seems to be fairly uncommon, and the requirement of novelty would make it useless here anyway.

What this really sounds like to me is a designation of origin issue, which is somewhat like a trademark. Personally, I'm not a big fan of them. Champagne, to me at least, is a product which can be made in many different places around the world. I don't mind putting a national or regional appellation on it (French champagne, Australian champagne) if it is applied equally to everyone, but I don't like the idea that it can only be called champagne at all if it is from a specific part of France, regardless of how similar or even identical it might be with the same product made elsewhere. This, IMO, doesn't inform customers, but misleads them, and doesn't aid the market, but hinders it (by implicitly discouraging competition by outside manufacturers).

Re:Just like Europe

[spun]

Wrong. Those are designations of origins. Champagne and Parma are actual places. You can make parmesan or champagne, but you can't call it such (in Europe, anyway) because such a designation would denote that the foodstuff actually came from that region, and if it sucked, it would reflect poorly on the region. In the USA, a syrup producer in Kansas could not call their product 'Vermont maple syrup.' Calling a cheese 'Parmesan' or a sparkling wine 'Champagne' is like calling a syrup 'Vermont.'

AFAIK, Hummus, falafel, and so forth are generic names for foods traditional to dozens of countries. Nasi lemak means 'rice in cream' and is also not a designation of origin, therefore, attempting to copyright it is ridiculous and no other country is going to honor Malaysia's demands. Not that we in the US honor Europe's protected designations of origins anyway.

Diluted Meaning

[Nethemas the Great]

The more copyrights, patents, trademarks and the like are applied to all aspects of existence the less people will pay attention to them. People will largely treat them as meaningless and tread all over them even in areas generally considered legitimate.

Re:Diluted Meaning

[eldepeche]

This is not a copyright or patent issue, nor is it strictly a trademark issue either. It is the seldom-referenced fourth category of "intellectual property," geographical indicators. It, like trademark, is rooted in the principle that prevents you from opening up a burger shop with big golden arches out front. Companies have a right to enforce their brand, and geographical regions have a right to regulate the quality and authenticity of any product bearing a claim of origin in that region. This is the most defensible type of intellectual property. (That said, I know nothing about the merits of this particular case.)

Re:You just couldn't call it "hummous".

[Vinegar Joe]

You can't make "Delft" pottery except in Delft.

Delft pottery is a Dutch knockoff of Chinese pottery. Maybe the Chinese should sue?

then there'll be free software analogies

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

    When people have to campaign for their freedom to share and change recipes, they can simply reverse Stallman's recipe example:

  But these freedoms should not be strange to you. At least, not if you cook, because people who cook enjoy the same four freedoms in using recipes.

The freedom to cook the recipe when you want. Thatâ(TM)s freedom zero. The freedom to study the ingredients and how itâ(TM)s done, and then change it. Thatâ(TM)s freedom one. Cooks frequently change recipes. And then the freedom to copy it and hand copies to your friends. Thatâ(TM)s freedom two. And then, freedom three is less frequently exercised because itâ(TM)s more work, but if you cook your version of the recipes for a dinner with your friends, and a friend says "that was great, can I have the recipe?" you can write down your version of the recipe and make a copy for your friend.

The story behind it

[Amitz Sekali]

Indonesia and Malaysia is currently in a...uh.. copyright war. For a few months, there are some cultural stuff (like dance, show, food) that each claims to origin from themselves. I believe it was started by a Malaysia tourism advertisement that claims certain dance to origin from Malaysia.

Not a new phenominon

[tsotha]

I don't know how you could blame them. In 1997 a US company called RiceTek patented a strain of Rice they called Basmati, a name the Indians have been using for centuries. All kinds of companies take out defensive patents, where they never intend to collect money from other people, but they don't want to pay for obvious ideas either. There's no reason the same thing wouldn't happen in the copyright arena. From here:

According to Dr Vandana Shiva, director of a Delhi-based research foundation which monitors issues involving patents and biopiracy, the main aim for obtaining the patent by RiceTec Inc. is to fool the consumers in believing there is no difference between spurious Basmati and real Basmati. Moreover, she claims the "theft involved in the Basmati patent is, therefore, threefold: a theft of collective intellectual and biodiversity heritage on Indian farmers, a theft from Indian traders and exporters whose markets are being stolen by RiceTec Inc., and finally a deception of consumers since RiceTec is using a stolen name Basmati for rice which are derived from Indian rice but not grown in India, and hence are not the same quality."

It doesn't seem odd the Malaysians would seek to prevent similar problems. The situation isn't exactly the same, since this is a copyright and RiceTek took out a patent, but I think the business objective is the same.

Re:Just like Europe

[viper34j]

I don't know about you but I'd take some Vermont on my pancakes any day...

Re:we already copywritten recipes

[hondo77]

No, they don't. The secret recipes of McDonalds and KFC are trade secrets.

Re:Trademark the Hamburger

[richdun]

But see, McDonald's is already 10 steps ahead of you there - when franchisees complained about the cost of a "double cheeseburger" ("universally" recognized as a sandwich with 2 hamburger patties and 2 slices of cheese) then on the Dollar Menu, they created a "new" sandwich with 2 patties, 1 slice of cheese and called it the "McDouble," moving the "double cheeseburger" up to something like $1.29 and putting the "McDouble" on the Dollar Menu.

And, speaking of Malaysia, they already go after anyone with "Mc" in the name - so no trademarking "McSandwich" or "McBreadWithMeat" or "McDoubleMcMeatProductWithMcCheeseProduct."

Re:Just like Europe

[Dahamma]

Sparkling wine is correct - though you it's mostly the French-owned companies (like Chandon) that call it that, plenty of the CA wineries call their sparking wine "champagne" (no capital C at least...)

But "powdered cheese"?!? You my friend, have clearly never made it past basic Kraft cheese food products. Have you ever had good Parmesean reggiano? Or in your culinary world, does Velveeta == cheddar?

Sparkling wine; grana cheese.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

The problem with Parmesan and Champagne is there's not a good generic term for foodstuffs of that type not from that origin, whereas if you could get decent maple syrup outside of Vermont you could call it "maple syrup" and people would actually understand what it is.

There's a perfectly decent generic term for sparkling wine. Talking about grana cheese generically is considerably more difficult, though, at least if you want people to understand you.

Style

[istartedi]

What's wrong with "Parmesan-style", "Champagne-style", etc.

You could require that the "style" be in the same size and font as the other part of the name on the packaging. You could also require that the actual origin be near the name: Parmesan-style cheese from Champagne.

Oh, damn, I take it back.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

It turns out now there's a Grana Padano protected designation, so you can't call that kind of cheese grana anymore.

Re:Just like Europe

[istartedi]

I'd take some Vermont on my pancakes any day

Would you like the sandy loam or the loose clay?

Public Domain

[frovingslosh]

Although forces of evil like Disney would like to have it otherwise, copyrights are still for a limited period of time. In the U.S. this is even spelled out in our Constitution, with the copyrighted material them passing into Public Domain. This article is talking about traditional foods, not some newfangled "Invention" (which might be covered by shorter lasting patents than longer lasting copyright). So even if the concept of copyright on food were valid (and I believe it is bogus), wouldn't these foods have passed into Public Domain long ago?

Alternately, can a claim of copyright be made by a country? Wouldn't a copyright claim have to be made by an author? Clearly the government of these countries are not the authors of these foods, so they have no copyright claim on them. It is more reasonable to assume that the real author wanted their intellectual property to pass into public domain than to fall into the hands of politicians.

Not copyright

[eldepeche]

Uh, this has nothing to do with copyright. The TRIPS agreement formally established geographical indicators as protected intellectual property about 15 years ago. It's similar to a trademark, as it is an assurance of quality and consistency of product. As others above pointed out, the same protection exists for Champagne, Cognac, Parmigiano, Basmati, and several hundred others. I can make no assessment of whether this instance is justified or not, but the linked blog post (and most of the responses here) is kneejerk and uninformed.

Your own link contradicts you.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

For better or worse "Champagne" has become a genericized trademark.

Your own link contradicts you. Champagne has never been a trademark; it's a protected designation of origin.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:No copyright for recipes in Western world

[Alain Williams]

There is a great deal of difference between publishing the recipe in a book, where it can be made by people at home, and someone selling something that has not been produced in Malaysia.

The recipe for Stilton Cheese is well known, but you can only call it Stilton if it has been made in the three Counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. It cannot be made in the village of Stilton that gave it its name since, at the time the EU came up with the definition, it had been forgotten that it had ever been produced there!

That's not quite accurate.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

You're not generally allowed to mislabel your products in the USA to make consumers believe that they come from some region that they do not, especially if you do so to mislead consumers into paying a higher price. There exist specific exceptions in regional wine names that are recognized as semi-generics with special rules, and some regional product names that are seen as generics ("parmesan"). You can take your Wisconsin cheese and label it "Parmesan," and nobody will go after you in the United States; but if you label your $5/lb Wisconsin cheese as "Parmigiano Reggiano," that's not cool.

Kind of amusing

[PCM2]

I find it interesting that Malaysia would be claiming there should be copyright protection for foods, when there isn't any kind of copyright protection for anything else in that country/region -- not in any real sense.

This isn't a troll -- just try going to any market in Malaysia. You'll find whole tables of knockoff DVDs, knockoff Paul Frank T-shirts, knockoff shoes, knockoff handbags ... the average person sees nothing wrong with it.

I once went to a DVD store in a mall on the island of Penang, off the west coast of Malaysia, probably around 2002. I mean this was a real store with one of those roll-down metal cages that go in front of the plate glass windows when they close shop, inside a real mall with a food court and everything. This store had one small bookcase full of legitimate, imported American DVDs. The entire rest of the store was given over to knockoffs. You could get DVD-5 copies for about $5 and the DVD-9s were about $8. They were well aware what they were doing; they even had DVD players and TVs on hand so you could double-check the video quality of the copies you were buying. I picked up a set of the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD-9, plus a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark. In passing, I told one of the kids working there (he was wearing a polo shirt with the store's logo on it) that you couldn't buy any of these movies in America (at that time, none of them was available on DVD). He looked at me like I'd just told him I'd never seen rice before.

Mind you, technically it was all illegal. Malaysia actually seemed to have a pretty strong force of "copyright cops" that would do sweeps for pirated DVDs. The problem was that copyright law was one of those laws that was so poorly respected by the average citizen -- basically, everybody living in Malaysia had broken it at least once, and probably did so routinely -- that there was absolutely no respect for enforcement, which in turn leads to corruption. Everybody involved in the knock-off trade seemed to have a contact who would tip them off when a sting was about to happen. I met some Australian tourists who were hoping to go to the DVD store I mentioned, but when they went (on a Wednesday afternoon) it was closed. Apparently they had been warned not to open that day. Similarly, even guys who were hawking their wares on blankets at the night markets would occasionally get calls on their cell phones, then immediately roll up their bundles and walk away while customers were still waving money.

Still, no doubt this effort by the Malaysian government does a couple things:

1. It gets some attention for local cuisine, which isn't as well-known outside the region as (say) Thai food
2. It gives Malaysia brownie points with the Western countries for acting like they really care about intellectual property law

Personally, though, I doubt the average Malaysian cares much more about it than Americans care when we find out our home city is now "the sister city of Vladivostok." Sounds great, but what difference does it make to me?

Re:Just like Europe

[LanMan04]

Let me get you a "facial tissue" to help with that runny nose.

Oh wait, of course I meant "Kleenex".

Re:Just like Europe

[jonbryce]

In England, we call them "chips". The things you call chips, we call "crisps".

Re:Trademark the Hamburger

[jonbryce]

1. Hamburg gets a PDO on Hamburger
2. Attempts to licence to McDonalds
3. McDonalds starts calling them Beefburgers
4. No profit

Re:Just like Europe

[Balthisar]

Well, within Mexico, tequila can only be made in the state of Jalisco and a small portion of the state of Guanajuato. It's also only to be made of blue Weber agave, which is a type of maguey. Tequila is a subset of the mezcales, and there are other mezcales, like bacanora. Other mezcales can be made with other types of maguey.

Internationally, "tequila" was granted an OAC in 1977, but the USA doesn't recognize OAC as pointed out in so many other posts. Instead, the USA (and presumably other countries) depend on trade agreements to protect specific names, and that's the case with tequila in the USA.

Re:Just like Europe

[spun]

Look, that's just putting a band-aid on the problem. You can't just xerox a product to make an identical copy.

Re:Trademark the Hamburger

[oldhack]

What I found truly popular in the disparate countries I visited is fried chicken. Don't care how poor or rich the country, if they are a target market for KFC, you'd see groups of fat people gorging on buckets of them.

Fried Chicken©!!!

The devastating 1-2 combo with: Potato Chip©.

We are now THE global IP superpower. Take that all you fat foreign bastards, I mean, our valued customers!

Re:No copyright for recipes in Western world

[Daimanta]

"The recipe for Stilton Cheese [stiltoncheese.com] is well known, but you can only call it Stilton if it has been made in the three Counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. It cannot be made in the village of Stilton that gave it its name since, at the time the EU came up with the definition, it had been forgotten that it had ever been produced there!"

But wait, there is more.

- it can only be produced in the three Counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire
- it must be made from locally produced milk that has been pasteurised before use
- it can only be made in a cylindrical shape
- it must be allowed to form its own coat or crust
- it must never be pressed and
- it must have the magical blue veins radiating from the centre of the cheese

Stilton actually contains magic. Stilton cheese is awesome!

If matter can be represented as information...

[zoeblade]

...then food could possibly one day be copyrighted on the genetic or even molecular level. I wrote a story which hints at this a short while ago.

Re:Trademark the Hamburger

[MichaelSmith]

And, speaking of Malaysia, they already go after anyone with "Mc" in the name - so no trademarking "McSandwich" or "McBreadWithMeat" or "McDoubleMcMeatProductWithMcCheeseProduct."

You missed the news.