I find it interesting that the only industry that seems to be totally fine with sharing is the restaurant/foodie business sharing recipes. I am sure there are some cases of people fighting over who plagiarized who but mostly it seems like free recipes online in abundance and cooking books still seem to thrive.
It probably happened because recipes can't be copyrighted (though particular writeups of them can). They had no choice, and it turned out to work just fine.
I would imagine Coca-cola would not be pleased if you took the recipe to their beverage and started making your own at home. Which is why it's not published anywhere and kept a closely guarded secret.
Some big companies still care greatly about their recipes.
