Last year (before I stopped traveling) I heard Eric Von Hippel (MIT
Sloan School of Economics) present a paper on his research into Norms-
Based Intellectual Property Systems (meaning systems that don't use
formal legal protection but rather social norms for enforcement). He
and his student, Emanuelle Fauchart, studied French Chefs. Here is
the paper for those of you who like to read:
web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/papers/vonhippelfauchart2006.pdf
And here is a pretty good (short) write-up of what we heard (for the
purpose of discussion here):
http://onthecommons.org/node/972
Basically they found that strong stimga attached to "copying without
improving" a recipe was an effective inhibitor to abuse.
Danese
On Jun 27, 2007, at 6:19 AM, Thaths wrote:
On 6/27/07, Madhu Menon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
In my business, I have no real expectation that any of my recipes
will
remain a secret. And I can live with that.
Reminds of one of Cory's sayings: "My problem is not theft. It is
obscurity."
There is a restaurant in Bangkok whose menus were so encyclopedic with
social, cultural and gastronomical trivia about the Thai that they
(the menus) was frequently stolen. The owner of the restaurant
eventually came up with the solution of having 5 menus - all of them
containing the list of dishes, but each one containing a different bit
of the social/cultural/gastronomical information. The intent being if
someone stole the menu only a fifth of the information would be lost.
Thaths
--
Homer: He has all the money in the world, but there's one thing he
can't buy.
Marge: What's that?
Homer: (pause) A dinosaur.
-- Homer J. Simpson
Sudhakar Chandra Slacker Without
Borders
