Warning About Licensed Characters And Copyrighted Material
Business By Rachel5370 Updated 31 Jul 2010 , 3:55pm by costumeczar
Just curious if anyone knows whether or not cake show competitions shown on, I believe Food Network, showing cake artists making Sesame Street characters, etc. got permission. This may be a silly thing to ask but there will be people who look at those cakes being made and figure it is ok. I also read the post by Paris at Planet Cake and she clearly feels that people should be able to do these cakes and her biggest point being they are perishable. I am not saying I agree or disagree as I myself will admit to doing this for my son and to be honest I never really gave it any thought until now.
They do get permission and go through alot of time and money to do it. The discussion I saw on Facebook that inspired me to start this thread included a lady who worked at Food Network and was involved in obtaining permission. Even once permission is granted there are still many restrictions about the images can be portrayed, reproduced, how many times the episode can air etc... I think also that when a cake is being made for an actual Sesame Street party or for a sports team, then of course it is ok to use the images because the cake is being made for the owners Of the images/characters.
Disney gives Witon the right to make a character pan if Wilton pays Disney money to do so.
Wilton makes money by selling us the character pan. We now own the character pan. We bake a cake in the pan, we take the cake to little Susies party up the road. All of a sudden we're in big doodoo with the Disney police because we baked a cake in a copyrighted pan, without paying Disney for the right to do so.
How does any of that make sense? Its nonesense. Why would Disney bother to allow character pans or cake toys to made and sold to the public if they're so uptight about copyright infringement?
They make money whenever a pan is sold. They don't make money when someone uses the pan that's marked "home use only" to sell a Mickey cake to their friends. I don't know what's hard to understand about that. They're also trying to preserve the integrty of their characters, which cost them a lot of time and money to develop. Did you see my post about Minnie with her head off taking a smoke break? Because of that my friend's kids didn't want to buy character crap at Disneyworld and they hate the characters now. Although that's good for my friend's wallet, it's bad for Disney's bottom line.
The Planet Cake owner's comments feel like a total rationalization of "I want to do it so I'm going to" regardless of the legality of it. I thinkt aht she's wrong about the Polly Schoonmaker thing, too. She trademarked the words "topsy turvy" or whatever it is she uses to describe her crooked cakes, but she can't copyright a shape. Other people had done crooked cakes before she did, and the reason that it's done more in Australia is because they're more popular there, not because the copyright isn't valid there.
I notice that nobody has asked any copyright attorneys about any of this yet. Maybe that would be a good place to start instad of asking each other, since people are obviously confused about it. I once had a request to do a classic Disney cake for a baby shower. The girl's father called me to pass along the information,a dn I told him that I couldn't do the characters becasue they were copyrighted and I didn't do those. He said "Well that's good, because I'm a copyright attorney. I could tell you some stories."
Did you see my post about Minnie with her head off taking a smoke break?
My understanding is that Walt Disney prohibited any of the employees-in-character to be out of character in view of park visitors. So no smoking, no head removal, nothing. They are not even permitted to be seen out of their character-land (i.e. Cinderella can't be seen walking thru Toy Story area, which is why there are LOTS of underground tunnels that the employees use to get from one area to another.)
Disney was VERY strict about this stuff! For the very reason that costumeczar mentioned.
To further confuse the issue, here's the story of the copyright issue of the "Happy Birthday" song:
http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp
Read every bit of this thread and truly understand where Disney is coming from- True, there are a lot of bigger issues in the big scheme of things, but we do have the laws to protect intelletual property.
Off the topic, sorta...and it's splitting hairs, but wondering if somewhere buried in all this legal mumbo-jumbo is a line to prohibit the re-selling of the pans, t-shirts, Halloween costumes, etc --say on eBay, your neighborhood garage sale--I wouldn't think so but??
Read every bit of this thread and truly understand where Disney is coming from- True, there are a lot of bigger issues in the big scheme of things, but we do have the laws to protect intelletual property.
Off the topic, sorta...and it's splitting hairs, but wondering if somewhere buried in all this legal mumbo-jumbo is a line to prohibit the re-selling of the pans, t-shirts, Halloween costumes, etc --say on eBay, your neighborhood garage sale--I wouldn't think so but??
Somewhere there's a law that says that you can resell things that you bought in a yard-sale/ebay type setting. I don't remember what it's called, I don't think it's part of the fair-use policy but it's something related to that.
Okay, maybe if we think about copyright referring to other items, it will help us understand how the pans are to be used. Copyright laws prohibit the use in a public and/or commercial use.
So think about a movie. When you go out and buy a movie, you now CAN:
-watch it at your house
-take it your parents house
-your kids can take it to a friends house to watch at a sleepover
You CAN'T:
-charge admission for kids to come and watch it (commercial use)
-make copies of it and sell it to your neighbor (commercial use)
-take it to school for the student body to watch (public viewing)
So, if that all makes sense to you, substitute the words CAKE PAN for MOVIE. There are still plenty of uses for the pans, they just need to be kept within the guidelines. Hope my little analogy helps some 
And the story of Burberry versus pet product manufacturer:
http://www.stylelist.com/2009/10/19/burberry-sues-pets-at-home-over-plaid/
Who knew fabric could be copyrighted (or is it copywritten?)?
Has anyone read Tabberone's website? He/she apparently sells items made from licensed fabric and resells it on ebay. Whenever they've been called on selling an item that it copyrighted, they've taken it to federal court and won. According to the site, once anything that is licensed is sold, there aren't any laws that prohibit the use of it by the buyer as long as it isn't being sold as an officially licensed product. One would think that would also apply to character pans sold by wilton. You don't sign a licensing agreement when you buy one, and again, according to Tabberone, such a thing cannot be "implied" just by buying the item.
Selling a chair covered in licensed Mickey Mouse fabric is legal(according to the site) as long as the seller doesn't list it as an "officially licensed" Mickey Mouse chair.
Obviously there is some debate as to what is legal and what isn't, and I can see both sides. However, it doesn't make sense to sell a person an item that is specifically used to make another item but then prohibit what the buyer can or can't do with what they make. My thoughts are that if this is such an issue for disney, they shouldn't sell items that encourage the buyer to recreate their image.
ETA: Regarding the issue of preserving character integrity, if one makes a disney cake for home use, it's okay to post it on the internet, correct? So what if it's a big ol mess? Why doesn't disney specify the colors you can use and the way the cake is decorated the way they do with deco paks? What if I wanna make a mickey mouse cake with a wilton pan, and then make a great big marajuana leaf to slap on his shirt and a fondant cigarette hanging out of his mouth? Is there some wording on the pan somewhere that says I can't do that? Does it compromise the integrity of the character any less because I didn't sell it? Just curious.
Disney gives Witon the right to make a character pan if Wilton pays Disney money to do so.
Wilton makes money by selling us the character pan. We now own the character pan. We bake a cake in the pan, we take the cake to little Susies party up the road. All of a sudden we're in big doodoo with the Disney police because we baked a cake in a copyrighted pan, without paying Disney for the right to do so.
How does any of that make sense? Its nonesense. Why would Disney bother to allow character pans or cake toys to made and sold to the public if they're so uptight about copyright infringement?
They make money whenever a pan is sold. They don't make money when someone uses the pan that's marked "home use only" to sell a Mickey cake to their friends. I don't know whats hard to understand about that."
Right, but I'm not talking about selling the Mickey cake, I'm talking about taking it to another home other than your own as a gift for a childs BD. According to how things are being said here, you are now breaking the rules as your cake is not "home use only".
I truly don't think that Disney would bother sending their pan police after your average home baker that makes the character cake for free anyway. I'm sure they're much more interested in finding the bigger fish, the decorators that are making a lot of money on their cakes.
As for minnie taking a smoke break. I'm sure she was gone in an instant for not following workplace rules about smoking on the grounds. Costume or no costume. You smoke, you're fired. I have no problem with that at all. I do find it a bit unusual that seeing the person smoking would sway a child so much they hated the character from then on? I have 8 grandchildren. All of them knew at an early age what was real and what wasn't real. I'm sure if my youngest saw minnie smoking he'd go ewww gross, but he'd still play with his mickey and minnie toys.
Question,
I'm planning on taking a class in Nov. where you learn how to Muppetize yourself or another person etc. You have to pay for the class etc. Ok, here's the question, according to copyright law, can they legally charge for the classes if they don't hold the copyright. What if, after the classes that I want to muppetize a person and charge them for it, could I be sued. Just wondering.
I have been following the thread and decided to post this link to a past discussion with tabberone and her site. Here is the link:
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=676491&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0
I think it would be quite interesting to speak with several different copyright lawyers to get their points of view and compare them.
[quote="costumeczar
Right, but I'm not talking about selling the Mickey cake, I'm talking about taking it to another home other than your own as a gift for a childs BD. According to how things are being said here, you are now breaking the rules as your cake is not "home use only".
I truly don't think that Disney would bother sending their pan police after your average home baker that makes the character cake for free anyway. I'm sure they're much more interested in finding the bigger fish, the decorators that are making a lot of money on their cakes.
As for minnie taking a smoke break. I'm sure she was gone in an instant for not following workplace rules about smoking on the grounds. Costume or no costume. You smoke, you're fired. I have no problem with that at all. I do find it a bit unusual that seeing the person smoking would sway a child so much they hated the character from then on? I have 8 grandchildren. All of them knew at an early age what was real and what wasn't real. I'm sure if my youngest saw minnie smoking he'd go ewww gross, but he'd still play with his mickey and minnie toys.
To clarify, this was in a public prk in Spain, where people who aren't employed by anyone dress up like these characters in cheap knockoffs of the costumes, follow people around and harass you to take your picture with them then pay them for it. There's no workplace anything, they're basically beggars who harass you. The kids weren't horrified by a headless Minnie smoking, they were afraid because they were being followed and harassed by these people who were dressed up without permission. Disney doesn't give people permission to dress up and molest people, for some reason they think that gives their characters a bad name.
Home use only means that you don't sell the cake. Give it to a friend for free, that's fine, as far as I know.
To clarify, this was in a public prk in Spain, where people who aren't employed by anyone dress up like these characters in cheap knockoffs of the costumes, follow people around and harass you to take your picture with them then pay them for it. There's no workplace anything, they're basically beggars who harass you. The kids weren't horrified by a headless Minnie smoking, they were afraid because they were being followed and harassed by these people who were dressed up without permission. Disney doesn't give people permission to dress up and molest people, for some reason they think that gives their characters a bad name.
Home use only means that you don't sell the cake. Give it to a friend for free, that's fine, as far as I know.
I must have missread your comment. I thought you were referring to Disneyland or Disney World, that the smoking incident happened on the grounds. My apologies for not reading it proper.
Of course people dressed in character & harrassing others would be unsettling, children especially if they're pushing them. I hope you reported them. No country/city wants tourists complaining about harrassment, & would jump on it quite fast. I know they do here.
On the other hand. If I saw people dressed in character on the street simply walking about waving in a friendly manner, trying to coax a smile or two, I'd have no problem with that at all.
I must have missread your comment. I thought you were referring to Disneyland or Disney World, that the smoking incident happened on the grounds. My apologies for not reading it proper.
Of course people dressed in character & harrassing others would be unsettling, children especially if they're pushing them. I hope you reported them. No country/city wants tourists complaining about harrassment, & would jump on it quite fast. I know they do here.
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This is in Spain, where the gypsies (I mean that literally) are everywhere begging for money and scamming tourists on the street. It's how they make their living...I think that if anyone tried to report tham the Guardia would laugh at you!
And before anyone starts getting on me for using the word "gypsy" feel free to read this, it explains the situation. I used to live in Spain, and yes, there are gypsies there. http://countrystudies.us/spain/41.htm
This is in Spain, where the gypsies (I mean that literally) are everywhere begging for money and scamming tourists on the street. It's how they make their living...I think that if anyone tried to report tham the Guardia would laugh at you!
Re: your link. Gypsies were once accepted in the community, but then became persecuted and driven out for being non Christian, starting in 1492. They were then for hundreds of years treated like nothing, like dirt till the mid 80's.
I am not surprised after reading that article, that many Gypsies are still begging on the streets of Spain. It's all they've know to do for a long long time. How else would they have survived those hundreds of years if not for begging?
The article states since 83, Gypsies are being treated more fairly. That social programs are available for them.
I would think its going to take a lot of those social programs, and many more years to right this wrong.
Hi, I am the OP. I mentioned something earlier about posting a quote from the Facebook discussion. This is from a producer (at a network we all know and love!) who was involved in obtaining legal permission for the use of licensed characters on T.V. Here's the quote:
yes, there are very strict arrangements about how the characters can be used within the episodes, how long and how many times the program can air, how the character clips are used within the episode, including ...voice, talent (puppeteers) and music. Those are all separate rights. I would very strongly advise against using them without written permission from the companies.
The amount of legal that is involved is intense to say the least. For those out there that are posting their work on their sites. If you don't think they're watching. You may be surprised. If you are using the characters in any way that would defame or misrepresent them, beware. Just don't do it.
Be original! There were times when partnering with major studios we were only allowed to use theme and not actual character names and logos.
To paraphrase Kerry Vincent's message again- It's about honor. It's not about trying to justify stealing someone else's "intellectual property" or finding loopholes in copyright laws. One of Ms. Vincent's life goals is to help elevate sugar art and cake design to the same level of respect as other mediums.
Part of this (my opinion) comes from behaving like artists and always striving to create something new and better- and respecting the work of other artists. People are watching cake artists right now, because cake is HUGE at the moment. But really people, if we are doing only our own designs- then what is there to worry about? I am not claiming to be an expert on copyright law by any means. I am also not saying I am completely blameless on this issue either. I posted this for two reasons.
1) I believe in free enterprise and the American way, flawed as it may be. Being able to protect one's intellectual property in a competitive market is essential
2) I know what a struggle it is to build a business- and it would be tragic to see someone lose everything they have worked for because they caved in and made a cake or a cookie that they shouldn't have. ~Rachel
Hi, OP again. I forgot to mention that anyone teaching classes involving licensed characters or copyrighted material- as in teaching people how to reproduce it- is really taking a big risk of getting sued. It is not a small thing, it's advertised and the instructor makes a substantial amount of money off of it! I saw that very issue mentioned in this thread and wanted to address it. Companies are on the look out. You can Google any company name plus "lawsuits" to find out the kinds of things that are prohibited. Apparently, Loius Vuitton and Tiffany have gone after people for unauthorized reproduction.
Right now there are several cakes on just the first few pages of the Most Recent Cakes that might violate copyright laws.
ETA: Regarding the issue of preserving character integrity, if one makes a disney cake for home use, it's okay to post it on the internet, correct? So what if it's a big ol mess? Why doesn't disney specify the colors you can use and the way the cake is decorated the way they do with deco paks? What if I wanna make a mickey mouse cake with a wilton pan, and then make a great big marajuana leaf to slap on his shirt and a fondant cigarette hanging out of his mouth? Is there some wording on the pan somewhere that says I can't do that? Does it compromise the integrity of the character any less because I didn't sell it? Just curious.
Ok so I laughed out loud (at work no less) with this doped-up mouse cake image in my head. I truly hope you make it, just for fun in your own private home of course, and post pics!
Now, back to the original topic, sort of. I've notice a lot of cakes made to look the wrappers of a certain round, peanut butter-filled chocolate or a famous brown chocolate bar wrapper with white lettering in all caps (notice, no names). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that these are obvious copyright infringements b/c youve reproduced their image....BUT what about using said copyrighted chocolates IN OUR CAKES AND FILLINGS? Can you no longer use them or their name? Can you no longer tell your bride its dark chocolate cake with a R***E peanut butter filling? Very intrigued by this whole issue.
I have been following the thread and decided to post this link to a past discussion with tabberone and her site. Here is the link:
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=676491&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0
I think it would be quite interesting to speak with several different copyright lawyers to get their points of view and compare them.
I don't know if any one else went back and read this thread, but it seems to contradict a lot of this thread. I noticed that there wasn't a link to her site any more so maybe her information wasn't 100% correct. In my opinion common sense would be just not to do it. It's just not worth the trouble.
I have been following the thread and decided to post this link to a past discussion with tabberone and her site. Here is the link:
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=676491&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0
I think it would be quite interesting to speak with several different copyright lawyers to get their points of view and compare them.
I don't know if any one else went back and read this thread, but it seems to contradict a lot of this thread. I noticed that there wasn't a link to her site any more so maybe her information wasn't 100% correct. In my opinion common sense would be just not to do it. It's just not worth the trouble.
I don't recall whether or not a link to her site was ever posted(I thought what she was saying was interesting so I googled her), but she has several big corporations in her "hall of shame" and I'm pretty sure if she were wrong about what she's saying, they wouldn't still be there.
I have been following the thread and decided to post this link to a past discussion with tabberone and her site. Here is the link:
http://cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=676491&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0
I think it would be quite interesting to speak with several different copyright lawyers to get their points of view and compare them.
I don't know if any one else went back and read this thread, but it seems to contradict a lot of this thread. I noticed that there wasn't a link to her site any more so maybe her information wasn't 100% correct. In my opinion common sense would be just not to do it. It's just not worth the trouble.
I don't recall whether or not a link to her site was ever posted(I thought what she was saying was interesting so I googled her), but she has several big corporations in her "hall of shame" and I'm pretty sure if she were wrong about what she's saying, they wouldn't still be there.
You're right, I goggled her also.
Right now there are several cakes on just the first few pages of the Most Recent Cakes that might violate copyright laws.
Yeah, but they may not be selling them so it wouldn't violate anything. I posted a Little Mermaid cake, but that was for my daughter's 3rd b-day.
IDK It looks like across the board those copyrighted images are off limits to all but those who obtain a release from the company.
If you could not make it because it is illegal to reproduce the material then you would have purchased items and the company would have received royalties for those items. By making it yourself the company lost out of the sale on their protected material- selling or not selling does it make a difference? It is still theft if I am understanding it now.
I have cakes I have done for my kids and I was under the impression that as long as you don't sell it it was OK. That may not be. In this case ignorance is not bliss if the companies are perusing copyright infringement across the board to protect their rights.
Is there a link to this Kerry Vincent article somewhere?
I highly doubt they'd come after someone for making their child a birthday cake. Nobody is making money off of it, so not sure of the legalities behind that. If I draw a picture of a character instead of buying a poster for my child's room again I'd doubt that Disney is going to come after me guns blazing. But that would be funny nonetheless.
But that's the point of the law protecting them, they are not making money on their copyrighted images that are being reproduced. It doesn't matter if it's not sold... the company is still missing out on the possible sale because "counterfeit" images have been produced.
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