I have heard that you cannot sell cakes made from the character pans because of copyrights. Does that include putting a picture of the character on the cake? If I make a buttercream transfer or just draw it freehand on the cake is that allowed?

From what I understand (which may be way off base), you are not to copy the image in any way whether it be a transfer, character pan or anything, without permission from the copyright holder. You can purchase edible images or the plastic characters and use them, but anything else is prohibited. They want any copy of their character to be an exact replica and they want to get paid for it too. You can write to the company and ask for permisssion. I don't know what that entails though...

I know there are a lot of ways to try to get around it- like calling your cake a black rodent instead of Mickey Mouse or charging packaging fees instead of charging for the cake. I still think these are breaking the law, but I do most of my cakes for free so I haven't had to deal with it yet!

Kelly