[Infowarrior] - JSG: What's Next, Ramen Noodles?

[Richard Forno]

What's Next, Ramen Noodles?
http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71688-0.html?tw=wn_index_6

By Jennifer Granick| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Aug, 30, 2006

What if making ramen were like playing guitars?

Last weekend I was sitting on a stool in Sapporo's famous "ramen alley"
trying to decide what type of ramen dish to order for breakfast. I had just
read an article in The New York Times reporting that the Recording Industry
Association of America was threatening to sue websites that publish guitar
music tablature, or tabs, alleging copyright infringement.

The article said that the RIAA considers tabs copyright-protected
information. According to the recording industry, even incorrect tabs and
tabs developed by users from listening to songs are its property as
"derivative works."

I started thinking about what it would be like if there were an RIAA for
ramen.

The connection seemed obvious, because there are so many varieties of ramen
available in so many little restaurants and street stalls here. Ramen is
Japan's pizza -- derived from the cuisine of another country (China),
popular because it's both delicious and inexpensive, and available in
gourmet versions.

Ramen is culturally important in Japan, and, like music, there is an
infinite number of ramen styles, all of which have their committed
adherents, copycats and detractors.

Different regions of the country specialize in different styles of ramen,
and cab drivers, students and gourmands all have their favorite stands. But
Sapporo is Japan's noodly ground zero. The top floor of the city's Este
department store is a ramen theme park, complete with a train ride for kids
and 10 restaurants serving different regional styles of ramen. The
English-language tourist brochure for Sapporo informs visitors that miso
broth ramen is traditional in Sapporo, but today many competing types are
vying for supremacy and "Sapporo is in the midst of a civil war over ramen."

Imagine what that "civil war" would look like if the entrenched ramen
interests had the mind-set and legal muscle of the U.S. recording industry.

People play guitar in all sorts of styles, riffing on notes the way the
Japanese riff on the basic concept of Chinese noodles in soup. What if the
original ramen chefs tried to stop others from developing their own ramen
recipes and making differently flavored ramen broth?

They'd form an association -- say, the Ramen Industrial Alliance of Asia, or
RIAA -- and announce a clampdown on the proliferation of infringing noodle
shops. Their arguments would echo the music industry's. "The chefs who
created ramen deserve to get paid for their creation," they'd say. "These
noodle shops are taking profits away from the creators, while peddling an
often-inferior product to an unsuspecting public that believes they are
getting real ramen."

Just as the music industry claims that tab sites are publishing "derivative
works" related to the original musical compositions, the ramen industry
lawyers would argue that ramen varieties are derivations of the original
product. Kyushu's tonkatsu (pork) ramen, Sapporo's miso ramen or Hakodate's
shio (salt) ramen divert customers and take ramen sales away from the
original chefs.

The ramen shops would counter that they are merely providing flavorful
options for a hungry public looking for a delicious but inexpensive meal,
and that their existence increases the overall public interest in, and
demand for, ramen.

Each side would point to the vibrant communities of ramen maniacs, who rate
restaurants, and trade tips, recipes and commentary. The ramen industry
would call them thieves, responsible for the plummeting cost of noodles, as
well as the promulgation of an inferior, and possibly dangerous, product. If
newfangled ramen flavors are what people want, then it's up to the original
ramen specialists to provide them, not some two-bit stall in a dirty alley
under the train station. When people get sick from this stuff, people blame
ramen. Of course the ramen industry couldn't stand by and let that happen.

There's a reason that intellectual property laws don't cover recipes, so for
now, ramen may be safe. But with copyright laws that let the music industry
shut down sites for teaching people how to play guitar, intellectual
property claims against the making of noodles can't be far behind.

- - -
Jennifer Granick is executive director of the Stanford Law School Center for
Internet and Society, and teaches the Cyberlaw Clinic.