I have a friend who has a business and she asked me about copying characters, like sponge bob, disney characters etc. I know it is okay to do it for family and friends for free, but what about making money by selling your cake or cookies with that specific character on it. I have heard you could get sued for using them without having a license. How do you go about getting a license for this? Any suggestions or ideas?
I knew this would be the perfect place to get my information 
In purchasing the deco-pac (character) from the distributor, you are also purchasing the license to use that character. I have also heard and I do not know if this is true, (someone please chime in) that you must also decorate the cake in which the company intends it to be decorated. I purchase deco-pacs and they come with specific instructions.
So you think if you buy the product to make the cake i.e cookie cutters or cake pans, you are intitled to make the cake or cookie without worrying about a law suit? Interesting, I would of not thought of that, but true, they sell the pans and cookie cutters, so why wouldn't you be able to "use" them. Good thought, thanks!!
Any other suggestions?
I've actually read several posts on this and found out that you CANNOT sell character cakes, either made out of the shaped pans, drawn, airbrushed, whatever, because of copyright laws. You can however, buy the little plastic figurines, like from decopac and put those on a cake.
It sucks really! I've actually stopped buying character pans since you can't sell them. You can use them for home use only.
I thought that you could sell them if you altered them a bit but you can't even do that
Look up Character cakes or copyright in the search, there are lots of posts
I think, when sugarhill refers to a "deco-pac", she is referring to an actual cake kit -- not the pan or cookie cutter. Those Wilton pans are meant for "home use only", not for resale. So yeah, you can buy them and "use" them to your heart's content, you just can't sell them.
I buy the deco-pac Disney Princesses and add them to my castle cakes. Of course all my castle cakes have been for free anyways 
The link below is an example of a Wiggles deco-pac (I bought it to use for my son's 1st birthday, but never got around to actually making the cake).
http://cgi.ebay.com/THE-WIGGLES-GREG-MURRAY-JEFF-CAKE-DECORATION-KIT-PARTY_W0QQitemZ320097918970QQihZ011QQcategoryZ102391QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
You'll notice the cake is decorated a specific way, yellow on top, music notes around the sides...that is what sugarhill meant by "you need to decorate the cake the way the company intends it to be decorated".
i was looking today for the dusts they don't have here and came across a site that claimed to be licensed to sell character cakes. I also saw a wholesale distributor that specifically says character pans are for home use only. So there has to be a way to get licensed to do it. I will look around some more.
i do know they do have people check to make sure bakeries arent doing licensed char. by altering stencils or doing them out of buttercream. when i was working in a retail bakery, i had 2 men look in my cake case and then come up to me and ask if a dinosaur cake was'' barney''? because it was sprayed purple and green, i said no, its just a purple and green dino. they asked me a bit more about decorating and left. i deff. know they were scouts looking for non-copywrited cakes.
and a decorator south of me got a letter from a lawyer about making lic. char. on her cakes, warning her not to or be fined!! she stopped right then. it does happen, getting checked.
To get a license, you would need to go directly to the copyright holder. In my opinion, the result from such contact would be to give you a definite answer to your question -- no, you cannot reproduce and sell their characters. You will then be on record as a "willful infringer" in the eyes of the law which can mean more trouble for you if you go ahead and sell and then get sued. I think it would be unlikely that they would give a license for this purpose, since it would be costly for them to control your use of their images (any important part of IP licensing is maintaining control of the image and product quality.) That said, it is probably not practical for you to enter into a license agreement, as they would probably require you to pay a royalty, licensing fees and purchase insurance to cover them in case they were sued resulting from consumption of your product.
Re: the decorating kits, I don't have one but I would be very surprised if they produce these kits without including information for proper use of the product. Check out the fine print.
Sorry that this post is so negative. Especially when you are only trying to make children happy. I hope it is helpful, though.
I called Deco-pac directly once about this question. If you purchase their kits you are also to be decorating the cake exactly as it is shown in their catalog. I think that is a bit extreem myself but that is the way they have it set up. I've never heard of anyone being sued for changing the background but you never know.
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