Hi everyone. Im new to cake decorating and have a question re: selling character cakes. I read a recent post from a member wanting to know how much to charge a customer for 3 cakes as opposed to 1 cake...the customer bought the pan (if I read correctly). Also have seen many cakes in the gallery. Anyway, my Wilton instructor told the class that it is illegal to sell character cakes because they are trade marked. Are most of the character cakes done for family or as gifts? Can you please give me the scoop on this so as to avoid any future trouble? I would like to be able to satisfy customer requests.

TIA,

Leslie

Welcome to CC,
Here is a previous post about character cakes and deco pacs.

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-29696-decopac.html

from what i understand, they are only for household use.
there is also several other post with this issue. if you just do a search for character cakes you can find numerous posts that would answer your questions.

Thanks Justme for the welcome, link and for even responding. I was beginning to think my question was a no brainer....which I guess it was. Just so ya know, I did try a search with no results. Maybe I didnt use the right words. The link was a big help.

Hi Les, welcome to CC! If you are caught selling character pan cakes by the character pan police, you could face some serious charges, but let's face the facts: People will and do sell character pan cakes. Starting prices should be $25.00 depending on the detail of the pan and how many darned stars you have to squeeze out.

You will, however, find that the character pans may be cute, but not challenging enough and you will want to try some of the techniques you read about here, the first probably being a Frozen Butter Cream Transfer (FBCT). You'll get super excited and then want to get into other cake related things as well. Trust me, I know!

Have fun with it, practice, and post pictures. We llloooooovvvveeee pictures!

Thanks for the info debsuewoo. I'll keep that in mind. I've been reading alot on this site about FBCT and cant wait to try some. I've posted my latest cake under the First communion category...not my favorite. My first First Communion cake was much better, of course cuz it wasn't a commission. lol. When I get the pics I will post them.

FYI . . . for those of you with a subscription to American Cake Decorator there is an excellent article on copyright material, specifically character pans. If not a subscriber if you can read it at your local library, it is definitely worth reading.
Leslie
(ncdessertdiva)

Who is going to turn you in?

Most people won't turn you in. You can't tell me that the character pans manufacturers don't know what is happening. If they were that worried about it they would not make the pans. They count on people like us to do this for free advertising for them. The more we advertise, the more they can sell similar items i.e. toys, clothing, etc.

All it takes is one unhappy customer, or one competitor to make you life a mysery.

i have several pans and just checked them out...the copyrighted ones like dora and carebears say for home use only...the others like the daisy and buggy do not.

hope that helps

hi guys
I too have had this question and was looking on a pooh pan I have and could not find where it says home use only am I looking in the wrong place? Where did you see this?
I am trying to start a new business and have pans from past own childs birthdays and don't want to include them because of the legal issues.
thanks

Jessireb, No they don't count on people like us to advertise their character to promote more business in the toy, etc. area. They sell the pans in order to make even MORE money on that character. I used to work for a large enter. company and they actually had a lawer hired exclusively to hunt down people infringing on their copyrighted characters. They had private investigators on the payroll too looking for people. I remember one case where a customer was unhappy with a person dressed up as the character for a b-day party, so they called us to complain. We then told them they didn't work for us, got all the info, and went after them. The fines are not worth it. I think this is one of those areas people tend to think "it won't happen to me.", but having worked in that area I can tell you - it can.

Sorry, Didn't mean to offend you. My bad, beat me with a wet noodle. I will just use my pans for home use only.

Sorry if that seemed a bit harsh. That was not my intention. I just don't want people to think that it's okay, because you can get caught. And when you do there is a hefty fine. I'm just trying to inform and protect my friends here on CC. Believe it or not I do care about everyone here.

enchantedmoments. on the pans where is indicates it is a wilton pan and the year etc...is where my newer pans say home use only. The older ones, like rainbow bright and power rangers do not say this, but I would think it would still be a licensed character. My pooh cake pan does say home use only. I double checked.

I know this may be a repeated question but wanted to be clear and the answer.
I know if you buy from a company like decopac you can use the (ei) on the cakes you sell.
But what about things we purchase from this website like the cake kits or character items for cupcakes?

Oh! I see! I didn't understand the magnitude of their range of "hunting" for violaters of copyright. I got off track thinking it was just cake decorators!