dwandy's Journal: Cooking Software

So it's occurred to me recently that recipes are to cooking what software is to computing: A set of instructions that someone took the time to write out, refine, check, test and finally publish.
Now, according to the Intellectual Monopolists, copyright is necessary to cause creation. And to be sure, the books where recipes are published are in fact copyright. Yet, I would suggest that there is no working* kitchen in the Western World that does not include a photocopy from a recipe book, or a hand-written version, copied out of a book, the book itself long forgotten, and no where to be found.
If, as I suspect, the piracy rate (on a "cook" basis) is essentially 100%, has this caused the cook-book industry to dissapear? Has this caused no new recipes to be written? Has this in fact eliminated the incentive, as the apologists keep insisting? Of course not.
So why do the music and software industries insist that piracy will lead to the death of their industries?

The difference of course, is that there are no real monopoly profits to be had, and this is not nearly so interesting to the mega-corporations that run the software and media industries. They are not interested in merely earning a profit as the recipe book industry does: they want the mega profits that are only possible by monopoly controls granted by the government, and enforced to the maximum possible degree.

*A working kitchen is where people cook ... to be sure it is less likely to find pirated copies of recipes in a kitchen where no one cooks!