Copy Right Or Wrong?

Business By jen2bsur Updated 20 Jan 2012 , 12:55pm by costumeczar

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jen2bsur Posted 20 Jan 2012 , 12:27am
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I have come across a website where a lady and her cake shop offer classes using her cake designs such as say the Lightening McQueen Car and she says that her cake designs are copyright and cannot be recreated or used in any workshop but hers. Is this something that every Cake Designer is doing?
Also, Is it not already copy written if they design a cake around a Disney Theme which is already copy righted by them??

Also, When we take classes is it not for us to learn new skills and techniques and then go back to our local areas to share with others if we are ICES members?

How can someone as a cake designer...Design a cake and then copy right it so that no one else is able to teach how to recreate that design or something very similar to it if the tools are not the same?

Also, Do we not all use some of the same tools anyway?

I am just confused about this whole issue of Copy Right on Cake Designs? Can someone share their thoughts on the matter???


Thanks

5 replies
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silverdragon997 Posted 20 Jan 2012 , 1:38am
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I would ask this lady if she got permission from Disney/Pixar for the Lightning McQueen cake. I'm positive that Disney did NOT let her copyright a cake design of their copyrighted (is that a word?) character. They probably didn't even give her permission to make a cake of Lightning McQueen. Disney rarely, if ever, gives permission to replicate their characters in cake.

I suppose someone could try to copyright a cake design, but since most cake designs can be traced back to inspiration from other cakes, etc., I imagine it would be hard to prove that you were the first to make it. Then you'd have to spend a whole lot of time researching to make sure no one was actually copying the design...seems like a whole lot of work for nothing to me.

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shanter Posted 20 Jan 2012 , 2:09am
post #3 of 6

jen2bsur, What web site is it?

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jason_kraft Posted 20 Jan 2012 , 3:25am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jen2bsur

I have come across a website where a lady and her cake shop offer classes using her cake designs such as say the Lightening McQueen Car and she says that her cake designs are copyright and cannot be recreated or used in any workshop but hers.



That's a new one, sounds like someone is asking to be turned in to Disney.

You can't copyright skills or techniques, you can only copyright an original creative work. An original cake design would qualify, but as you mention the problem is defining "original". If one decorator makes a cake that looks too similar to another decorator's original cake, the original decorator can sue for copyright infringement, but in the vast majority of cases the cost of legal proceedings would far exceed any potential reward, which is why you don't hear about this that often.

Of course with a company like Disney who has an army of IP enforcement attorneys on retainer, the numbers are different.

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KoryAK Posted 20 Jan 2012 , 4:55am
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She's bonkers icon_smile.gif

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costumeczar Posted 20 Jan 2012 , 12:55pm
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She's a loon who thinks that she can take someone else's design and copyright it...Yeah, right, in that case, I'm copyrighting the process of answering a post here because I'm doing it now, so nobody else can ever answer another post on here or I'm going to sue you.

I asked a couple of copyright attorneys about copyrighting cake and cookie designs, and this is what they said: http://acaketorememberva.blogspot.com/2011/12/can-you-copyright-cake.html

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