I am new to the cake business and I have a question: Does anyone know if it is some kind of copyright infringement to recreate licensed characters (mario, buzz lightyear, ariel, etc) on a cake for a client?

Yes. You can not recreate licensed characters, logos, etc that are copyrighted. The character pans that they sell are for home use only and are not to be sold.

Just wondering, but wouldn't selling cakes with fondant copy righted characters be the same thing as selling a cake made from a character pan? After all your still selling it with something that has been copy righted on it.

Got ya, it just looks like many do though.

There was a pretty long detailed thread on this awhile back titled "warning about licensed characters" or something like that. I don't know how to paste it here and should remember the title because I started it! It was locked, I don't know why, but there is some good info there! ~Rachel

I know that I have done a few but they aren't sold. They are strickly for my family.

Thanks for all the responses! That was helpful. I have one more question, do the same copyright laws apply to branded products ( pepsi, nintendo wii, ipod, etc)?

Yes, the laws apply to anything with a copyright.

...but I guess the question is has anyone ever actually been slapped with a lawsuit over recreating a licensed/copyrighted image on cake? Do companies care about cakes, or (for example) are they more concerned with people who start bulk printing t-shirts with their copyrighted character/logo on them to sell?