Food Network Gets Sued Over Snow Globe Cupcake Tutorial
Food Network is chock full of recipes, but one has prompted a lawsuit by Elizabeth LaBau, a woman who runs the food website SugarHero.com. According to The Hollywood Reporter, LaBau has filed a lawsuit against the company for posting a how-to video for snow globe cupcakes that looks just like a video she had posted three weeks before.
The recipe was originally posted on LaBau's website in 2014 in time for the holidays, showing readers how to make the dessert with water balloons and gelatin sheets. After the post went viral, LaBau's income "more than tripled" that month due to increased traffic and ad revenue, so she posted a how-to video to go along with the recipe.
In the lawsuit, LaBau says that Food Network posted a similar video weeks after she posted hers, and claims that the network's actions constitute copyright infringement. Under copyright law, a listing of ingredients isn't protected, but the law does protect "expression of the recipe," including "a description, explanation, or illustration."
"The Food Network video copied numerous copyrightable elements of Plaintiff's work precisely, including but not limited to choices of shots, camera angles, colors, and lighting, textual descriptors, and other artistic and expressive elements of Plaintiff's work," William Bowen, LaBau's attorney, wrote in the lawsuit.
The company has yet to respond to the lawsuit.