One of my New Year's resolutions is to get away from making "illegal" character cakes like the ones I've done so much in the past! I would like to have my own shop someday and know that I cannot continue to make them as I do now. I've begun researching "cake topper" companies like cakes.com and DecoPac....but their kits are so expensive, and I would love to know if there are other companies that sell these sort of cake topper kits. I know I can decorate around the theme or color scheme of a character and be legal, but I just didn't want to conform to the typical kit you can get at the grocery store. So, any advice anyone can contribute would be so appeciated!
Cammie
If you wanted to invest in a Kopycake machine (I think it's like an overhead projector for cakes), I think they sell design packages with licensed characters. Then it would look handmade, you wouldn't have to buy each individual plastic kit, and it would be legal! The local cake shop that I get my supplies at does this I think, because I have seen a lot of sheetcakes and stuff with flat, buttercream designs of licensed characters that she has done and I know she wouldn't do it illegally and she has one of those machines. You can check on their website (for Kopycake) or ask some CCers that have one and see if I am correct and how much it all is.
HTH,
HeatherMari
no those are not legal eighter...you eighter buy the cake decoarting kits they have available..
or an alternative is to make a "background" as I did in my fairly cake..and let the customer place their toys on the cake.
what makes a charachter cake a legal cake? i thought that if you changed the normal then it wasn't technically the same. (different color pants-eyes-small things but changes.
As long as it's 'recognizable" it's a licenced character that we cannot copy.
So, even if you make Barney the Purple dinosaur RED...His character shape is sooooo recognizable that it still "BARNEY" there for ...not able to copy it..
in other words..even if you made a Generic Mouse face but added the "MICKEY" ears...it's still ...a Mickey Mouse cake...
Get the idea?
But, for some reason I see that in Europe a LOT of cakes are made off chacarcters and there is no legal issue there...I guess the copy write laws are different there.
Yes, it was my understanding also that to be LEGAL you must either 1) buy the cake topper kit, or 2) buy the edible image that has the copyright on it, or 3) decorate the cake in the color scheme, but not include the character. If a bakery is using the KopyKake projector to trace any image that is licensed, that is ILLEGAL.
True, if any character is a "similar likeness" of the licensed version, it's ILLEGAL. Someone once said, "Oh, I made the Thomas the Train cake, but called him a Choo Choo".....still illegal, even if they slightly changed the way he was decorated.
I guess I'm just fishing for ways to still be creative without being illegal! I do like the decopack kits, just thought they were expensive!
I just bought a Thomas toy and used that as the the cake decorator.)
But, for some reason I see that in Europe a LOT of cakes are made off chacarcters and there is no legal issue there...I guess the copy write laws are different there.
No, the laws are the same, but I guess people still think that the copyright stuff is a good joke, from someone who is living in a far, far away country 
But I think it will be only a matter of time, till Disney & Co start to fight for their rights overhere.
It's my understanding that it is legal to use the toys on a cake. Is that right?
Yes, you can use toys that the client buys...what I have done when they do this...I get the toys and use them for "placement"..then remove the toys place them in a baggie and tape to the box.
That way you're not selling ANYTHING looking like a lic cake.
Example.....they bring me the toy train and I pipe the track to fit that particular toy, then she takes it home with the cake and all she has to do is place the toy train on the track.
WOW, I didn't know that the copy write laws are the same as here!! I was blown away by so many cute character cakes that I see on many European Cake decorators web sites!
Ha! oh well!
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