Can I Fondant Purchased Copyright Figurines???
Decorating By emms73 Updated 17 Jul 2011 , 3:03am by jason_kraft
my daughter is getting married in may and asked me to make her cake well she wants a princess bride and a stitch in a tux on top of cake was wondering if bought the characters and used fondant to put tux on stitch if this would be an infringement or not please help thank you for all your help in advance
I would have thought as its your daughter and she isn't paying for the cake (I presume) that because its not being sold you wouldn't have had a problem even making your own licensed figures anyway...???
If you are using licensed figurines that you've purchased you should be OK, however recreating them from scratch with fondant would be copyright infringement (regardless of whether or not you accepted money for the cake) unless you get prior permission from the copyright owner.
To answer your header, you cannot alter the licensed character. Fondant would change it. But you can use the purchased characters on the cake.
My interpretation is that the fondant is part of the decoration of the cake that happens to cover part of the character and is not a permanent alteration of the character itself. I can see your point as well, so this may be a gray area, but seeing as OP did purchase the licensed character and is not using it in a negative light it's hard to imagine Disney would have a problem with it.
Once you have purchased licensed figures they are yours to do with as you please **EXCEPT to SELL** them.
Using them on your daughter's cake is fine - even if you have altered them some.
You have that backwards -- you cannot modify licensed figures in a way the copyright owner does not approve of (i.e. placing the IP in a negative light), but you are specifically granted the right to sell a legally obtained copy of a copyrighted work without permission from the copyright owner, see the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
to jasonkraft 
k so then if you purchase a barbie doll make some clothes for it then give it to someone is this also considered infringement i'm just trying to make sure that i understand what i read because most of it talked about software your help is grately appreciated thanks
to jasonkraft
k so then if you purchase a barbie doll make some clothes for it then give it to someone is this also considered infringement i'm just trying to make sure that i understand what i read because most of it talked about software your help is grately appreciated thanks
From my interpretation of the first sale doctrine, it would cover the Barbie doll itself -- it basically says that Mattel can't stop you from buying a Barbie doll from the store and selling that same doll to someone else. Re the clothes: unless you copied someone's copyrighted design to make the clothes you would be the copyright owner for the clothes design and would be free to sell them.
The first sale doctrine would not protect you if you made your own doll that looked the same as a Barbie doll and sold it (either on its own or part of another product).
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