It's okay, op. You can use my shit recipes

I think it's terrible that we even suggest intellectual property has its place in recipes. They can keep it a "secret" all they want, to me it only shows how insecure they are about the quality of it.

Would you sue someone for making a sandwich like yours ? Lots of burger place around here have their own take on the BigMac sauce, no big deal.

I send my brother-in-law stuff that I make. He had a juice from his local shop that he said tasted like one of mine. He sent a bottle down and it was exactly like mine. Pretty obviously so, as well. I really don't care at all. To me, it shows that people like what you do.

Now, if they were to market a clone on here as the real thing..that would be shitty as hell. But I posted a recipe, someone used it, and is now selling it at a B&M. I ain't mad.

If someone found a chocolate chip cookie recipe online, would you begrudge them for starting a cookie company and selling those cookies? Of course not. The customers aren't paying for a recipe, they are paying for the cookie that someone had to acquire the ingredients, bake, package, and distribute to you.

I sell to friends slightly above cost, and have 0 issues using other peoples recipes I found online.

Sorry if that offends anyone.

(1) Is it acceptable to sell juice made from a recipe online? Yes... depending on how you define "acceptable." This seems like a matter of personal ethics, not universal ethics. What do you want to be? Do you want to be a boutique, high-value creator of new ideas in the marketplace? Or do you just want to grab some piece of the low-value, commoditized low price juice market?

What the modern consumer wants more than anything else is authenticity. And they will pay dearly for it! If you only use recipes you find online and add no creative input yourself, then you're not an authentic "juice maker." You're just a mixer; you might as well be a robot. People won't necessarily know that directly, but your juices will probably all have common flavor profiles they've seen somewhere else a million times before. Compare that to someone like Bombies, where every single flavor he sells is unique and set apart from the norm. THAT is boutique, that is premium. Whereas you will have confined yourself to the market's low-price ghetto.

Or to use a food example, what you're talking about is the equivalent of the little standard chinese food restaurants that are in every town in America. They're all independent companies, but they all sell essentially the same dishes with the same tastes, using the same ingredients and the same or similar recipes. So in personal ethics terms, do you want to run a chinese restaurant? Are you okay with that? If so, that's fine, but realize that nobody pays premium prices for General Tso's Chicken.

Disclosure and permission and etc. are all good things, sure, but I think the fundamental question is one of your personal ethics.

(2) No. Recipes are not copyrightable, patentable, anything. There are no relevant intellectual property rights with regard to juice-making except perhaps in the name brand, if it's trademarked.

A good analogy is to comedians. A recipe is like a joke. You can't hold IP rights to a joke. But that doesn't mean the community of professional comedians won't shun you if you steal one of their jokes! And again, you have to ask yourself if you want to be the kind of Borscht-Belt comedian who just tells old worn-out jokes ("take my wife... please!"). Or, in contrast, do you want to be a creator--someone people will remember?

(3) No. I don't think anyone is likely to call you out based on a chemical analysis; I don't think that would give indisputable proof. But come on, it's going to be obvious in other ways. And more to the point, YOU will always know. Can you live with yourself? If so, that's fine...

Ethics means different things to different ppl. Personally, I wouldn't sell anyone else's recipe, it may line my pockets but it wouldn't make me feel good at all about it. I want to sell things that I create. But, look at this, if you see a really neat craft project that's been shared on the internet, with the full intention of others making it for themselves to enjoy, then think, hey, I could make these and sell them and make a pretty penny. I would do that, because, I would put my spin on it, I've done all the labor and used my materials. Really, about the same thing with recipes. If you share them, you run that risk. Should you do it? Depends on your own ethics, and how you look at it? Personally, unless I create it, I don't want to sell it, but I sure do want to enjoy making other's recipes, it's how I'm learning to create my own masterpieces. Hope to be able to get to where I can share soon. We are getting close. Love the knowledge here. Thanks to all who share.

Its not wrong, its meant to be shared. If its like that then the culinary world would have nothing new on it. NOTHING.

Reflect on that.

No one could tell you what your ethics define.

I can tell you this:

• If you opened a restaurant making only other peoples recipes exclusively, you'd be a cheat.

Yes all cooking will follow tendencies and techniques, what tastes good together taste good, but straight up making only other peoples work wouldn't last you long. There's a certain expectation of your own creativity.

• If you opened up a software company, selling only a clone of Word and Excel, you'd be in court really fast.

• IF you started a car company with 4 models, Accord, Civic, Fit & Odysee, you probably wouldn't be tauted as being groundbreaking on the market.

Now that examples are you of the way.

This is closest parallel to cooking. If you play around enough, you are going to end up with something similar to what others have already created. That's life in this world.

IF you just print off recipes other people created for your own profit, it's dishonest and unfair.

If you could get the original creators permission, it would ease the dishonesty, but you could just spend your own time making your own recipes and avoid all of this.

My 2 cents...very few recipes nowadays are natural creations started from the ground up, creating an eliquid that's either spectacular or so-so. I can name quite a few but I think we can go through these threads and see them with all the hype surrounding them. However, most eliquid I've run across over the last 5 years all seems to carry some semblance to other recipes and other juice already on the market. Example: There's only so many ways to mix Strawberry and Cream. I do; however, encourage people to create there own percentages and add something new to said recipe clone so that it's a unique twist on the original recipe. I think giving credit to the original creator is expected. I just don't believe making a profit off of juice you make is "stealing", when that recipe has been cloned, intentionally or unintentionally before. Let's hear the hate.

Personally I don't care if people make make my stuff and sell it to their friends and what not. Even if it's to make a couple bucks to cover costs or beer money. What I do care about is if a BUSINESS takes a recipe and sells it, with no recognition to the creator FOR PROFIT. Doing that is completely frowned upon no matter how you put it.

Your way too late , there is already tons of juices out there being sold for good $$$ that have been taken directly from online sites .

Got to be real fast in this biz , people thought what you just came up with years ago .

I think everyone is aware by now that if you post a recipe up, someone, somewhere is going to use it or use it as inspiration for a recipe they will sell.

Most shops I would assume would be adapting recipes found online and tweaking it to their tastes anyway, not blindly following them.

My $0.02, Opening a shop and selling recipes posted online = a douchbag move. Although there ARE B&M's that do this, but honestly why should we care as we will not buy from them anyways.

Selling to friends and family is perfectly fine. Not everyone has the time, resources, or intelligence to DIY. If you are willing to do it for them then I don't see any problem with sharing the love.

I am Colonel Sanders. If you use my recipe I will find you and sue you until your lawyer screams uncle. No-one can steal my market in low income areas without paying my franchise fees

I always had moral conflict fixing other people's problems for money when they could easily just Google it as I did. But that's the difference. Many people have made livings off of selling products that they didn't invent or even manufacture at a higher cost than wholesalers. Don't think of it as them paying you for the product. Think of it as them paying you for your service of getting them the product.

What's so tough about being a big boy and making your own recipes to sell? I just can't stand laziness; and it comes off to me as very lazy.

Nothing wrong with it, as long as you're not advertising it as a "clone" or someone else's creation.

Recipes posted online are public. It's the maker's mistake if they didn't want it to be sold.

And if you still feel bad about it, why not add your own touch to the recipe? Gives you experience and possibly a recipe that's even better than the original.

I put it to you that almost every recipe you find online, anywhere, is not 100% original and has been derived or copied from somewhere at some point.

Lets be honest, the internet aint exactly know for its true honesty!

Never put anything online that you dont want others to have. If one is going to sell someone else recipe at least have the decency to change the name.

I think back to a vendor who put some popular recipes out there because they were reformulating. All he asked was that one changed the name and in no way include their name.

If say I made recipes for an entire line of ejuice that I spent months-years making and perfecting, yeah I'm gonna keep that a secret, but if someone is able to make a clone it I'm not gonna throw a fit at them for taking that clone and running with it.

I guess my question is, if we take a recipe such as Bronuts, is it ethical to take that and bottle it and sell it without giving credit to where it's due?

As an artist it's never okay for someone to take someone else's art, print it on a tshirt, and selling it. It is never okay to take that art and put your name on it claiming it belongs to you, and it's not okay to post that art somewhere without giving credit to the original artist. In the art world it's definitely not okay to take someone's art, tweak it, and then claim it's yours. It's also not okay to "eyeball" and/or trace someone else's art (trying to copy the art) and claim it's yours.

In short in the art world it's not okay to use things that is not yours without permission from the artist and giving credit to the artist.

I'm curious what would translate into the vaping world.

Should we give credit to the original chef? Should we ask permission from the original chef?