[quote="Sugar_Plum_Fairy"]
Besides that, their most popular charactes and movies are based upon works by others: Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, for example, are Fairy Tales that can be traced as far back as the 1630's and even had versions written by The Brothers Grimm; The Little Mermaid, as many might know, was actually a story by Hans Christian Anderson; the Jungle Book is a group of stories by Rudyard Kipling; etc., etc. Disney got most of its characters and stories from the works of others. It's a good thing those others were willing to share!
Oh, and I'm not saying that Disney has not copyrighted their stuff and are entitled to compensation when their stuff is used, but I think they go way too far for what they ask for others to use the likeness of their characters and their penalties for using said characters without permission is ridiculous. JMHO
If I spent as much money as Disney, I would go to the ends of the Earth to protect my desigs. I think if is is your idea, "blood, sweat an tears", protect it!
Disney was, and probably still is, the #1 entity in the world. They hould keep it. They employ lots of people and if their stuff is getting copied all over, that hurts everybody.
The other thing is, once people start copying, quality goes down. Never fails.
I haven't read every post on here so I'm not sure if this was addressed, but what about "donations". I'm making a Bugs Bunny cake for my Warner-Brothers-Freak-Fan-Sister and I usually don't charge my friends or family for my cakes. My sister, however, says that she just wants to make a "monetary donation" (her words) because she doesn't want me to be out "all that money" as she put it.
So, if you don't charge, but someone makes a donation to you, does this break the copyright law?
I still wouldn't do it. You are risking too much.
What about sports teams logos? Does that fall into the copyright laws as well?
They are all copyrighted or trademarked or ptented. If you see a tm, circle with an R inside or anything like that, yes.
Many phrases and combinations of letters are also in this catagory. For example, I have a store that sell sorority and fraternity items. The set of 2 or 3 letters that make up their group is licensed. We have to get licensed to sell things to them, or get SUED. We did, and do even better in business.
It is never worth getting sued, you will never win against these companies.
Here's a link with copyright information. It explains copyrights and the particulars.
http://www.copyright.com/ccc/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr10-n
Here's a link with copyright information. It explains copyrights and the particulars.
http://www.copyright.com/ccc/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr10-n
I've posted this story before, but it's worth repeating...I have a friend who lives in Madrid for a part of the summer each year, and she has two girls who were ages 8 and 11 when this happened. They were in a park taking a walk, and she said that there are a bunch of people who hang out in parks wearing character costumes who try to get you to pay them to take pictures with them.
On this particular day, one was dressed like Minnie Mouse and one was Mickey. Mickey started following them saying "hola! Hola!" over and over to try to get their attention. She said it totally freaked the girls out, then to top it off, they saw Minnie taking a cigarette break with her costume head off!
When we went with them to Disneyworld for vacation last year, their younger daughter was still freaked out when she saw anybody in costume. She thought they were all going to start following her around. We all got a kick out of saying "hola, hola hola!" whenever we'd see someone in costume, but that isn't good for Disney's reputation to have people freaking kids out in unlicensed costumes!
I often go to pinkcakebox.com because I just love her cakes, but looking through the gallery i've noticed an X Box 360 cake, Budweiser cake, and even Oscar the Grouch cake. How does she have these in her gallery if they are all copyrighted?
I had an Elmo cake in my portfolio, and a nascar cake - I didn't charge for either of these as they were gifts but I am paranoid now of even having them in my photo gallery.
Has anyone ever actually tried to get permission to do a copyrighted cake? The closest I have come is a nativity play we did at the church one time that my friend found on the internet and she emailed the author for permission to do it and he said yes.
How does she have these in her gallery if they are all copyrighted?
a) She has permission from the copyright holder.
b) She doesn't have permission from the copyright holder and did them anyway knowing she needed permission.
c) She doesn't have permission and didn't know she needed it, took the order and did them.
Has anyone ever actually tried to get permission to do a copyrighted cake?
A few people back in my old home town did ask a couple of the big names and they were told yes but they had to prove the integrity of the character look to them first with a trial submission. If it was approved they could use it for a one time fee plus royalty payments. The fee was crazy high and the royalty fee was like 20% of the cost of the cake.
They were told by some of the local Universities yes they could while others said no way. The Local NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB teams all said she would have to contact their legal departments regarding royalty fees for the image being used. Let's just say the fee made us all go 
when she heard back.
Each person over the years stated to us "I'll just do it anyway and hope I'm not caught." A couple of them were beause just by asking it sent up a red flag in the eyes of the copyright holders so of course they would lay low then call and check to see if they were doing them and then get in trouble.
Let me tell you those fines aren't cheap and they don't mess around. It's not just cake to them it's theft and it's not pretty if you are caught.
I was thinking about this last night and realized....what about the Coach bags, Vuitton, Juicy, Victoria's Secret, the shoes and all of those bags/boxes that I see? Aren't those copyrighted as well? Obviously most of know about the Disney/Sesame Street laws, but I don't think a lot of even give a second thought to the hundreds of others.
Speaking of which.....Debbie Brown...her books TEACH us how to make all of those cartoon character cakes (I guess that is just to be for home use like the Wilton/Disney pans?).
Really makes me want to be careful. I have even removed ALL of my cookies and cakes that have any Disney/Pixar from my Website.
What a shame - we ARE getting them added biz, you know. They should be paying US for the free publicity!!
If you make your living selling baked goods and use without permission (steal) someone else's property in your line of work, for example baking Mickie cookies for your kid's classroom, then you are passively promoting your business and using that image to do so, which is a copyright infringement.
Errrr, whoa! Wow! 
So if I ever do go into business, the Corduroy cookies I made for my son's classroom would be illegal? No Mickey, no Elmo, no Pooh, even for FREE?!?
That's nuts. I'm just fine with following copyright law and wouldn't make a cake or cookies with licensed characters to sell (unless I had permission, of course.) But to think I couldn't do something for free for my own family ... well, that's just wrong.
If you make your living selling baked goods and use without permission (steal) someone else's property in your line of work, for example baking Mickie cookies for your kid's classroom, then you are passively promoting your business and using that image to do so, which is a copyright infringement.
Errrr, whoa! Wow!
So if I ever do go into business, the Corduroy cookies I made for my son's classroom would be illegal? No Mickey, no Elmo, no Pooh, even for FREE?!?
It's using someone else's property for your gain regardless of money changing hands.
Say you make mickie mouse ear cookies for your sister's party. On the way home with them she gets a flat tire. A very nice person stops to help her so she gives him a cookie and he just happens to be legal counsel for Disney.
"Oh where'd you get these great cookies."
"Oh my sister made them, here's her card."
Or maybe someone sends the kid's favorite "Uncle Joe" who just got in town to pick up their youngster from the party.
I wouldn't risk it. There's plenty enough stuff that can rob me of sleep without doing stuff on purpose.
Yeah the nerve of people not letting us bootleg thier property. But I mean back in the day it was no biggee. But boy it sure is now.
ok i have a question, and it may have been posted somewhere in this,(its getting late so i'm a little loopy 
) but ok say i make cupcakes to sell and i buy a package of those picks to put in them for decoration, and the pics have, lets just say nemo on them, would that be copyright infringement? Seeing as i bought the picks to be used in the cupcakes? I am in the midst of trying to start a home based business and truth be told i'm completely lost on a lot of the legal side of things.
Glad I seen this post. I had no idea you could get in trouble for putting copyright images on cakes. Never thought about it really. Good thing I am not selling my cakes at the moment. Thanks for this post.
ok i have a question, and it may have been posted somewhere in this,(its getting late so i'm a little loopy
) but ok say i make cupcakes to sell and i buy a package of those picks to put in them for decoration, and the pics have, lets just say nemo on them, would that be copyright infringement? Seeing as i bought the picks to be used in the cupcakes? I am in the midst of trying to start a home based business and truth be told i'm completely lost on a lot of the legal side of things.
It gets a little mirky here.
Ok if you purchase commercially made products that are designed to go on cakes you are fine. But you gotta have relation$hips with vendors that sell the commercial product lines.
If you purchase items that are or are not designed to go specifically on cakes but you put them on there nonetheless then you are on shaky ground because the owner of the copyright did not make that item for you to resell--didn't make it for you to make a profit off of. By purchasing the toy and then selling the cake with it you are profiting.
So that's my understanding of it.
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