I finally have a place to call home. For years I've been working on contract for other wedding cake designers. The only thing I ever advertised was teaching cake decorating classes. I created a website almost two years ago and it was fully devoted to teaching. Now I'm changing everything and working out of a bakery No one can take credit for my work ever again!!! At my last contract job I the owner actually would post pictures of cakes that I did on Facebook and take credit! I also realized that her "portfolio she was showing brides was a whole album full of pictures she found on the internet. I'm sure she took credit for some of the designers on Cake Central. I quit as soon as I realized she was misrepresenting herself. Thankfully it opened the door for a great partnership with a bakery that I've drawn up a contract to purchase eventually. The current owner isn't ready to sell for a few years and I get first dibs when she is. I'm also investing sweat equity now so I can easily get financing when it's time. I'm pretty excited to have something of my own that can't be taken away.

Congratulations, I'm sure you will be so successful and sooo much happier!

Thank you and I'm sure I will be much happier.

I was wondering about this....  After reading your post I am even more curious to find out how other business owners deal with the situation.  I am considering hiring an assistant but if I let her decorate my cakes, how can I claim them as my own?  Like The Cake Boss, he has hundreds of people working for him and he does not decorate every cake, but they post pictures as them being his.  I don't think I would feel right doing this, as a business owner what would you, or do you, do?

whoever takes the picture, shoots it i mean is the owner of the cake picture

integrity guides it the rest of the way (in a perfect world)

and

buttercreammgt,

that's sort of a different kind of contract--i hope your sweat equity pays off for you

and i'm glad you're happy now and better situated

AIf you do work under contract for an employer, the employer owns the rights to the work, and it is not misrepresentation to claim ownership of said work in a public portfolio.

Of course claiming ownership of random pictures of cakes found online is a different story.

"At my last contract job I the owner actually would post pictures of cakes that I did on Facebook and take credit!"

Ok, so if the person is under contract the work is owned by the business they are working for.   (Sorry buttercreammgmt just using you as an example, your former employer was in the wrong for stealing pics off the net)

An employee decorating cakes for a business is no different to the person who sews a pair of jeans in a factory in terms of who can take the credit for the final product. The cake is representative of the quality of the business, not of the owner of the business. Now if the owner was saying 'look at this cake I made' that would be misleading.