Monday 9 August 2010

Copyrights

I thought I’d tackle a serious subject this week – copyrights. I don’t make copyrighted cakes. Despite being desperate to make myself a Snoopy cake (he’s been my favourite thing ever from when I was a very young child!), I’m afraid it’s something that I won’t do.


The reason for this is because if I recreate any part of a copyrighted work, I am in breach of copyright (unless I have a license to reproduce the work). By being in breach of copyright, I am breaking the law and I could, potentially, be fined a lot of money. As I don’t want to break the law or pay a big fine, I have decided the best way to avoid this is not to make copyrighted characters or cakes at all.


This led me to a dilemma this weekend. It was my niece’s 5th birthday and my niece is a HUGE ‘High School Musical’ fan. When I asked my brother what kind of cake I should do, I was told ‘HSM and pink’. That got me thinking. If I adapted an ‘HSM’ themed-cake, would I still be in breach of copyright?


I don’t actually know the answer to this, but obviously I hope the answer is no. I made pink curtains for a stage, made a microphone, some stars and some musical notes and a starburst which was pink, black and silver.


My niece loved her cake (it was pink!) and it went down very well, but I am still not 100% sure I’ve answered my copyright question. I think I’m going to look into copyrights in more detail and come back to this is at a later date.


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