Thank you for sharing Linda McClure's website. After reading here and there I will NOT be buying ANY ProvoCraft products. I detest their lack of ethics! May their deceit be their downfall!

Kathi

I just wanted to throw out there that I am prettty sure that Provo did NOT inform HSN of the licensing requirements for this machine. I work for HSN and none of the representatives were told of this.

I also talked to my supervisor about this and the way it was being marketed on air by the Provo rep about being able to sell the cakes and make your money back and she had no clue about the licensing agreement either and passed the info on to the proper legal departments to look into.

I think it is something shady and underhanded that upper management at Provo has done. They thought of everything first THEN after they draw everyone in decide there will be a license to go with the cartridges.

I am in sales at HSN but I feel bad for all the poor customer service reps that will have to deal with a lot of angry people when they all get notice after the return policy has expired that they cannot in fact sell their "creations" and recover the cost of the machine they just bought.

Well I have ordered one and I will make it work for me with SCAL. Just disappointed that some of the information about having to buy licenses was not released sooner. I do feel that this should of been mentioned alot sooner and I think none of this would be happening. I bet they are wishing they had mentioned it sooner as well.

So, I just heard about SCAL a few minutes ago, and it sounds GREAT, as I was wondering how I could afford more cartridges for the CCake I bought yesterday. BUT - someone on one of the mssg boards mentioned that they didn't know if SCAL would work on the CCake because they didn't know if it would come w/a compatible version of firmware. Does ANYONE know anything about that????
THX!

anybody there?

First off, morally they may be wrong however, the fact would be that it would take a lot of money for one to have to defend oneself regardless of the mis-information.
You would be able to use the product for prof. sale since they did not in fact have a licensing agreement in the instructions nor do they have a fee assigned to the product yet. How can one sell something without knowing what the fee would in fact be? Poor business model on that machine if it is sold without already having established a fee.
Provocraft is out of Provo Utah. Ladies, start sending them letters of expression. If we can do it on cake we can certainly do it on plain paper.
Thank you for all the wonderful information to those who have gone before me. I can't put my personal opinions on this one but will only say you saved a lot of people a lot of money.
Thank you ever so much.

sweetlorraine - Cricut says that you can use any cartridge in the Cricut Cake. My guess is that you can also use SCAL. I think that might have been the program that Martha from "Two Sweet Sisters" used when she used the Cricut Cake on "Ultimate Cake Off" Like I said earlier - I know several professional decorators where given Cricut Cake machines to trial. Were they allowed to sell their cakes decorated with Cricut designs? Did they have to pay for the trial machines?

Alright my take on this is:


I bought my expressions a couple weeks ago. Didn't want to fight the crowds for the cake one. I am truly pissed at the fact that I may have to pay license fees for other cartridges, and will not purchase anymore!

DH purchased SCAL for me last night, and said if I wanted to I could get MTC too.

There is more than one way to skin a cat my nana always said!!!

They are just cutting off their nose to spite their face! poo on the whole situation.

That is my opinion.....what is yours.....

I do think the disclosure about a licensing fee should have been made on the show and on HSN website. Even the fact that presenters were talking about how selling 2 cakes could pay for the machine tells me not everyone is on the same page so to speak.

For me, I have been collecting free SVG and creating my own files for awhile. With over 5,000 of these sold, how creepy would it been to see so many cakes with the same darn designs from the elegant and cake cartridges. I want to use my own creativity...just wanted something easier to cut those designs. Since I was little, I used to aggravate my mom, because I wanted to do my school projects differently than other students.

I'm waiting to see how all this will play out. One lady during a show said she has about 80 cartridges...umm I don't think she will be all that happy to pay this fee for a lot of cartridges. Who knows, maybe the fee scale could based on a per cartridge or have flat fee based on number of cartridges you want to purchase....1 - 5 pay this amount, 6 - 10 pay this amount.

I'm just amazed they didn't have all this stuff figured out before the launch!!

Ok, I've read Linda's statement, Provo Craft's statement, and Jennifer Atwood's statement and I gotta say, Provo Craft is looking a bit shady now that the extra bit of information regarding licensing fees has come out.

The fact that they claim they've been working on this since 2007 seems inconsistent with the fast-handed way they've dealt with the release.

I'm sorry, if I'm a big corporation working on a product for THREE YEARS, I think I'd have this stuff figured out already. Linda's claims seem a bit more realistic to me, IMO.

Heck, my coworkers and I (all six of us) can put out a marketing campaign in less than a month, and have all the kinks ironed out. Why couldn't Provo Craft?

Also, I'm starting to wonder about the legality here. Isn't it false advertising to tell customers that they can use a product a certain way, and then turn around and tell them no, AFTER they've purchased it?

Something similar was happening in the IT world, where software developers were putting the user terms of service agreement AFTER the software was installed, stating that since you've installed it, you've agreed to it. Um, no! (That was smacked down quickly, btw.)

I'm doing some research here. I have a few requests from the awesome people here on Cake Central. I noticed several of you mentioned watching the HSN segment on your DVR. Someone PLEASE save this and don't delete it. There needs to be a copy of this saved without having to go back to HSN and request the segement.

If you talk to anyone at HSN who tells you there is no requirement for the license, please get their name and note the date and time you talked to them and save it.

Basically, this looks like false advertising to me. If no mention was made on TV about needing to buy a license, so lots of people buy it, then they turn around and do this, I'm pretty sure that will violate something here.

I do NOT believe HSN is at fault her at all! I believe HSN was airing the segment and probably is as surprised by this as anyone else.

Also, I wonder about all those people out there who bought one who aren't Cake Central memebers or even visit the Cricut forums. How would they even know about this? Had I not started coming here, I don't think I'd ever have known.

So please, save all your information. It may come in VERY handy.

This just keeps getting bigger and bigger. I think PC better get their lawyers ready!! regarding the ebay book just search cricut cake and there should be an item read before you buy.

I have been waiting for the Cricut Cake for months and ordered it yesterday but after reading everything here I have decided to return it unopened on principle. The licensing issue, although unethical and falsely advertised, I could have overlooked because of SCAL or MTC but the whole business with Linda McClure has left me with no respect for the company. I will be buying one of the competitors paper cutters instead and adapting it as per Linda's instructions. Shame on you Provocraft! I think as decorators we all owe it to Linda to get word of this out there, beyond CC, so that Provocraft do not get away with this and Linda gets the recognition she deserves and gets her patent approved.

I agree with Victoria, I finally read Linda McClure's full story and must say that I feel she was taken advantage of and she is not getting the recognition she deserves.

I agree, but I've searched out the other machine alternatives, and they are even more expensive than the Cricut Cake! And then STILL need modified to cut gum paste.
I would love to know of another one that I could justifiably purchase, that I can bypass having to additionally purchase the SCAL software... any suggestions?

Where is her blog? I looked on the website and can't find it.

I purchased my Cricut Cake back in March, already knowing that Id be using SCAL or something similar. Now, Im not sure how accurate this information is, but I read on another thread a while back that if you used SCAL (or something similar) the warranty would automatically voided on the machine. Does anyone have any information on that statement?

I read in Linda McClure's website her side of the story. She has given more info in her website than provo crafts has given in theirs. I think that this is a private matter that their attorneys should handle. However it is sad that both parties have not reached an agreement. There is always more to the story than what is told. It is very sad for someone to put in so much work into something and not receive the credit they deserve.

I just went out and bought the deep cut blade for my $99.00 cricut and..ohhhhhhhhhhhh it still rips the fondant-gumpaste... any suggestions would be helpful... I set the blade on 6 with medium pressure....and my fondant is like paper thin....I use the mat that came with the cricut.... minus the sticky....cleaned it off the use veg. short. I just want to cut out letters..... thanks for any suggestions... I can see spending $400.00 is most of the forums said to just purchase the deep cut.... thanks in advance...

This is really bothering me. It seems so wrong!

Wow, so I wonder if Designer Stencils will now make us all buy a license fee if we use their stencil on a cake we sell. Or if we buy cupcake wrappers from a company if we will have to buy a license fee to sell a cupcake with that wrapper. Will Satin Ice or Fondx now require those who use their fondant to pay extra to sell it on a cake?

I also would like to see how PC can prove that you used one of their designs anyway, especially designs like a damask pattern or a scroll pattern or even a font. I mean seriously, we can all make our own and if it happens to look a lot like the one on one of their cartridges, how will they ever prove it was used from one of their cartridges. Agreed, seems like excessive greed.

DChockeyguy is ABSOLUTELY right!!! I read someone on here taped the HSN show - PLEASE SAVE IT! If you can copy it to your computer or some other medium for a safe backup - please do so.

If Cricut decides to go after people who bought this EXPENSIVE machine after watching the HSN show and BELIEVING they could "sell their cakes to cover the cost of the machine" as was repeated over and over again- then a class action suit will be brought! I think people who bought the machine under these pretenses will be OK, but if they are changing up their marketing program now - to not talk about selling cakes - then they realized the error and anyone buying after would be covered by the licensing BS. Just my thought!

This really TICKS me off and I haven't even read the Linda stuff!!!!!!!!

I'm not seeing the license fee on the Cricut site anymore. I read on the forum on HSN that they took it down. Any truth to this??? I already purchased mine and it was shipped today.