Passage B tells us that "accomplished chefs consider their recipes to be a very valuable form of intellectual property." While recipes are not "effectively covered by current intellectual property laws," the passage argues that "three implicit social norms are operative among chefs and together these norms function in a manner quite similar to law-based intellectual property systems."
1) Chefs must not copy recipes exactly - this "acknowledges the right of a recipe inventor to exclude others from practicing his or her invention, even if all the information required to do so is publicly available."
2) "If a chef reveals recipe-related secret information to a colleague, that colleague must not pass the information on to others without permission" - gives chefs rights similar to those given by a contract
3) "Colleagues must credit developers of significant recipes as the authors of that information" - similar to copyright protection
We are looking for the answer choice which supports the argument that the social norms function similarly to intellectual property systems. A is incorrect because it shows a weakness in this social norms system. While it does add some detail to the first norm, it contradicts that these norms function like intellectual property systems.
B is correct because it shows how this system of norms functions like an intellectual property system. If you broke the law, there would be a punishment; if you broke one of these social norms, the punishment is that chefs would be more likely to deny you information.
Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.
