I just came across this on Planet Cake's blog, and thought it worthy of posting the link here, as the writer offers some level-headed thoughts on what can be an emotive issue for a lot of people. (Scroll down to the 'CAKE DESIGN COPYRIGHT' heading.)

http://pccoursedirector.blogspot.com/2010/11/week-of-cupcakes-self-confidence-and.html

For those who don't know, Planet Cake is a fairly well-known cake studio in Sydney, Australia.

I'm not posting this to re-ignite the debate...I just thought the view-point was sensible, and that others might be interested in reading it.

Have a great day all!

Thank you for sharing this.

Thanks
I did find that interesting. Thanks for the link

I enjoyed reading the post and it makes some good points. I had a bride come to me at a bridal show and say "You wouldn't let me take pictures of your dummy cakes, would you?" I told her she was more than welcome to take any pictures she wanted. She then said "But I could take those pictures to another baker and have them make it".

I told her "But, why would you? My prices are competitive with all the local bakeries, you know my cake tastes great (she had just tasted a sample and commented on how good it was), and you KNOW that I can do that cake, because you're looking at it. Could another bakery do it? Maybe, but why take the chance?"

Brides bring me pictures all the time, and most of the time, I have no idea who did the cake originally. I have never thought about it as stealing someone else's design.

Thank you for sharing the link.

For every bride that brought in a cake picture to the bakery I worked for, we always told them that we would do our version of that cake...but don't expect it to be EXACTLY like the picture because we are not the ones who originally created it, however we would make it as close as we could while adding our own unique touch. Every cake is a different...even if you think you copy it exactly, it's going to be a little different because a different person is doing the decorating. It may even turn out to be better!

My daughter wanted a Ron Ben Isreal wedding cake she pulled from a magazine. The bakers where I worked were obviously not Ron Ben, but they did an awesome job creating a cake with certain elements so that it reflected the whimsy of the cake more than copying it...which would have been extremely difficult. It turned out great.

Like fashion, cake designs can't really be copyrighted. But credit is nice...that is, if you know who did it.