Intellectual Property (IP) & Theft

[CT-Scott]

This overall topic is especially interesting to me in the coronatimes. as I see so many parallels.

Restaurant CEO on COVID-19: 'I honestly don't see a scenario where 50% to 60% of restaurants don't close'
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/atlas-re ... 27891.html

Restaurants are getting a fraction of the business they were getting before. People are cooking similar meals at home. Does the restaurant owner deserve to be paid their desired asking price for chicken marsala when someone decides to instead make their own chicken marsala at home?

This is a very sad situation. My wife and I are foodies and spent [way too much] on going out to eat. So many great restaurants. So many waiters that we got to know over the years. The current situation is tragic. It has changed the market demand for the "products" that the restaurants have to sell.

But I'm in no way obliged to continue to buy their product, am I? Should I not be allowed to make chicken marsala at home without also, at the very least, paying my local restaurant owner for the right to recreate that chicken marsala recipe in my home?

[vnatale]

This overall topic is especially interesting to me in the coronatimes. as I see so many parallels.

Restaurant CEO on COVID-19: 'I honestly don't see a scenario where 50% to 60% of restaurants don't close'
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/atlas-re ... 27891.html

Restaurants are getting a fraction of the business they were getting before. People are cooking similar meals at home. Does the restaurant owner deserve to be paid their desired asking price for chicken marsala when someone decides to instead make their own chicken marsala at home?

This is a very sad situation. My wife and I are foodies and spent [way too much] on going out to eat. So many great restaurants. So many waiters that we got to know over the years. The current situation is tragic. It has changed the market demand for the "products" that the restaurants have to sell.

But I'm in no way obliged to continue to buy their product, am I? Should I not be allowed to make chicken marsala at home without also, at the very least, paying my local restaurant owner for the right to recreate that chicken marsala recipe in my home?

Isn't the flaw in that "People are cooking similar meals at home"?

To do that requires time and work as opposed to just showing up at a restaurant and relaxing while someone else puts in the time and work.

People have always had that choice, particularly when it's cheaper just money-wise to just cook their own meals. Yet greater and greater amount of Americans have rejected that choice.

VInny

[Tortoise]

Restaurants are getting a fraction of the business they were getting before. People are cooking similar meals at home. Does the restaurant owner deserve to be paid their desired asking price for chicken marsala when someone decides to instead make their own chicken marsala at home?

Vinny made a good point about the convenience and service aspect of restaurants.

But even if I could perfectly cook all of the food from my favorite restaurant myself, and even if I didn't mind the time and effort involved, it still wouldn't be the same as eating at the restaurant. For me, at least half of the reason I enjoy eating at restaurants is because of my experience of the mood and ambience of the different spaces. The service, the music, the people at other tables, the smiles, the laughter, the energy, the neighborhood, the people walking by on the sidewalk. It's all part of the experience to me.

You just can't replicate most of that at your own kitchen table, even if the food is perfectly reproduced.

[dualstow]

Does the restaurant owner deserve to be paid their desired asking price for chicken marsala when someone decides to instead make their own chicken marsala at home?
...
Should I not be allowed to make chicken marsala at home without also, at the very least, paying my local restaurant owner for the right to recreate that chicken marsala recipe in my home?

This is a somewhat ridiculous example. You're trying to tie it to bootleg music and movies which can be exactly reproduced at zero cost and a total required effort constituting a few button clicks. You can share those bootlegged files at the same time, leaving teenagers little reason to purchase the content.

There are a variety of reasons why applying this to restaurants will never work, including what Tortoise wrote above. One glaring reason is that your local did not invent chicken marsala.

However, if you started selling chicken marsala down the street with the name and logo of your local place, you would be shut down.
Still, if you're interested in pursuing this, give Nathan of Nathan For You a call.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_Starbucks

[stuper1]

Does the restaurant owner deserve to be paid their desired asking price for chicken marsala when someone decides to instead make their own chicken marsala at home?
...
Should I not be allowed to make chicken marsala at home without also, at the very least, paying my local restaurant owner for the right to recreate that chicken marsala recipe in my home?

This is a somewhat ridiculous example. You're trying to tie it to bootleg music and movies which can be exactly reproduced at zero cost and a total required effort constituting a few button clicks. You can share those bootlegged files at the same time, leaving teenagers little reason to purchase the content.

There are a variety of reasons why applying this to restaurants will never work, including what Tortoise wrote above. One glaring reason is that your local did not invent chicken marsala.

However, if you started selling chicken marsala down the street with the name and logo of your local place, you would be shut down.
Still, if you're interested in pursuing this, give Nathan of Nathan For You a call.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_Starbucks

Yes, this is another ridiculous example, among several that have been offered on this thread (I particularly laughed at the slavery analogies which were clearly supporting the reverse of what was claimed). Last time I checked, the copyright police weren't tracking me down for singing a copyrighted song in the shower where there is no commercial benefit. However, that doesn't mean that it's moral for me to upload copyrighted songs that I bought (or stole) to a service where other people can listen to them for free without paying the price asked by the artist.