Copyright With Wilton Cake Pans?
Business By FerretDeprived Updated 30 Jan 2007 , 12:33am by nglez09
For the molded cake pans is there a copyright, or somethign similar, restriction put on it sothat any cakes that are baked in it cannot be sold for profit?
What if i use the cake to jsut make the initial shape and carve/change things as needed. Would that still consitute for the copyright? OR would that be ok?
For the molded cake pans is there a copyright, or somethign similar, restriction put on it sothat any cakes that are baked in it cannot be sold for profit?
What if i use the cake to jsut make the initial shape and carve/change things as needed. Would that still consitute for the copyright? OR would that be ok?
as long as it's still recognizable it's still an infringement...in other words..a red Barney..is STILL Barney.
Be careful with advise from inexperiences sources...good intentions can STILL get you into trouble if trouble has a mind to find you! 
Something to note is that Jason Schultz really isn't inexperienced when it comes to copyright infringement as he is a trademark lawyer:
"In the case of Dora, that is the making of commercial cartoons and books, not cakes. The fact that Dora is popular on cakes comes from her popularity among her fans, not the skill of the hand that draws her or the voice that speaks her words."
This can be applied to the cake that the original poster was talking about. She isn't using the character pan to use what the original creator may have intended it for, but rather as a starting point from which to create something solely from her own imagination. 
Well i guess i should have been more spacific. It's not a character so much as a mold pan. I wanted to do mini duck cakes ,and thought i could use the mini wilton stand up bear pan. But i was worried that even after cutting off the hands, feet, snout, and ears it wold still be considered illegal to sell.
Well i guess i should have been more specific. It's not a character so much as a mold pan. I wanted to do mini duck cakes ,and thought i could use the mini wilton stand up bear pan. But i was worried that even after cutting off the hands, feet, snout, and ears it wold still be considered illegal to sell.
With that many changes, it's no longer a copy or would be considered copyright or actually trademark infringement. Copyright deals with literary works; trademark deals with characters, names, logos, etc. I have done some research on this for other reasons, so I have a pretty good idea of how the law works.
Once you change something more than 10%, normally it's no longer considered a copy.
HTH
Michele
You are fine for things like the duck, teddy bear, etc. Those are "generic" characters. The problem you run into is with the cartoon pans like Dora, Spongebob, Barbie, etc. It is the character itself which is copyrighted, not the pan. The cartoon character pans are intended for "personal use" only and should not be used when selling a cake. But, of course, it is done all the time and I'm not really sure how one would get caught.
Well i guess i should have been more spacific. It's not a character so much as a mold pan. I wanted to do mini duck cakes ,and thought i could use the mini wilton stand up bear pan. But i was worried that even after cutting off the hands, feet, snout, and ears it wold still be considered illegal to sell.
that Wilton bear is a generic character..I"m sure that you are able to use it without worries.
and no..it only applies to "CHARACTERS"...like...Mickey Mouse, Dora..things like that...Pans that are designed from movies and cartoons.
your clarification explained everything!
Hope my response did too!!
and YES, the PAN police CAN...get nasty...don't take the chance..like I stated..just because "EVERYONE" does it...doesn't make it RIGHT! 
Remember, what I said about Tattle Tails?
and why ARE kids calling each other names? I also remember being in school and the controversy of Tattle Tales..
If you do not want someone to "tell" on you...then don' t do something wrong...it's as simple as that. A clear concience has nothing to fear. 
Why are kids trying to intimidate each other with name calling in the school yards? Those doing the name calling are kids trying to bully the other "kids" into not telling when they do something they are not supposed to.
If you're not doing something wrong...then you don't have to worry about a "TATTLE TALE" right??
I bet I know someone that got beatup after school 
made me do it. Ok, thanks guys. I know the copyright thing was for character pans and the liek ,but i wasn;t sure if wilton had the same or similar restriction on their generic shaped pans. I'll be cake happy now that i know i can use the standup mini bear.
I've heard about the 10-20% rule for alot of things and then i hear it's not the case. Plus they are trying to change copyright laws. So keep checking!
Thanks everyone. 
LOL.......... Pan Police........... oh thats cute....
A little boy was trying to tell his teacher something and she dismissed him as "tattle tailing"...well....he was trying to tell her one of the little girls in his class (Kindergarten) had ran out of the fence at school during recess and said she was going home....the little girl was hit and killed by a speeding car about a block from the school.
Rules are set in place to be followed and obviously we can't claim the "honor code" because people break rules/laws all of the time. Tattling is just one of those words used by people who break the rules and want to bully an honest person by calling them a tattle tail. The word "tattling" is also used when an adult doesn't want to take the time to listen....
Sounds like an Urban Legend
If it is true the teacher may have dismissed him because he was a known as the class tattle tale.
There is no one on this earth that doesn't break a rule. And if they say they do they are only fooling themself.
The word tattling is used when someone wants attention so bad they think if they tell on others it will bring attention to them or make them look good, a sign of insecurity.
Someone who is focused on things in their life and on how they can better themself is not worried about what someone else is doing.
Life is too short and I want to find ways to make "me" a better person than to worry about what my neighbor is doing next door.
And isn't that what we pay the Pan Police for?
uhmmm....the little boy is my son and the little girl was a huricanne Katrina evacuee. The incident happened last year while he was in Kindergarten.
Well, I sure hope that they fixed the problem after that horrible accident, like adding more teachers and aids out on the playground and a SAFE fence for the kids to play in. The child should not have had the chance to leave that playground!!! I know for a fact my kids would NOT be attending that school again until these problems were taken care of.
My childs school has a 8 foot fence around the whole playground with one big gate they use to take the mowers in/out on the weekend, it has a chain and lock. The only other way off the playground is going thru the school and right past the office. Plus the school is out in the middle of nowhere.
[quote="Janette"]Sounds like an Urban Legend
This is the sort of thing I was talking about in a thread I posted several days ago called "Let's all behave..."
Let's get back to the original question of copyright or trademark infringement rather than arguing moot points. We have already settled on the fact that as long as it is not an obvious copy of a character, then it is not infringement. THAT was the original question.
Michele
you know whats strange?
in the bakery craft catalog, they have toy set ups that are definately copies of copyrighted things...
how do they get by with that???
like they have a copy of snow white and the 7 dwarfs.....they just call it something else.(among other things)
and when i worked at albertsons....they had a cake that was obviously cookie monster....even was blue with cookies comming out of its mouth....they just called it cookie eater....it was in the company's decorating handbook....albertson's isn't a small company, how did they get by with that???
How about kopykake prints os caracters, can you sell cakes with those, or does it falls under the same law?
I would think that as long as the picture you print on the icing sheet is not a copyrighted image, then you would be fine. However, I think most pictures are copyrighted if they come from books or such media.
you know whats strange?
in the bakery craft catalog, they have toy set ups that are definately copies of copyrighted things...
how do they get by with that???
like they have a copy of snow white and the 7 dwarfs.....they just call it something else.(among other things)
and when i worked at albertsons....they had a cake that was obviously cookie monster....even was blue with cookies comming out of its mouth....they just called it cookie eater....it was in the company's decorating handbook....albertson's isn't a small company, how did they get by with that???
LMBO. I see this all the time. . .c'mon people. . .who are you trying to fool?
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