Cake copyright is the assertion of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

on a

cake Cake is a flour confection usually made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elabor ...

. Cakes, as

edible art Edible art refers to food created to be art. It is distinguished from Edible Arrangements (which predominantly consist of fruit) because it is usually more elaborate dessert food. Common works of edible art include wedding cakes, birthday cakes ...

, can be an artistic medium for displaying an image or portraying a character.

Copyright of art on cakes

cake decorating Cake decorating is the art of decorating a cake for special occasions such as birthdays, weddings, baby showers, national or religious holidays or as a promotional item. It is a form of sugar sculpture, sugar art that uses materials such as Ici ...

is used as a medium for presenting copyrighted content, then copyright issues might come into play as with any other publication medium. Entertainment media organizations including

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...

Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company founded by filmmaker George Lucas in December 10, 1971 in San Rafael, California, and later moved to San Francisco in 2005. It is best known for creating and producing th ...

, and

Sanrio is a Japanese entertainment company. It designs, licenses, and manufactures products focusing on the ''kawaii'' ("cute") segment of Japanese popular culture. Their products include stationery, school supplies, gifts, and Fashion accessory, a ...

have asserted that cakes should not portray their copyrighted fictional characters or their copyrighted images without licensing.

Copyright on cake design

Cake design is an imagining of a cake as copyrightable art, like a

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

. Bakeries which provide cakes which critics have ridiculed for low quality have sometimes sought to claim copyright over their cakes. The copyright claim is part of an attempt to enforce demands that communities of people who mock cakes not publish photos of cakes for entertainment.

Presidential inaugurations

In 2012, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

of the United States had celebrity pastry chef

Duff Goldman Jeffrey Adam "Duff" Goldman (born December 17, 1974) is an American businessman, pastry chef, television personality, and writer. He is the executive chef of the Baltimore-based Charm City Cakes shop, which was featured in the Food Network reali ...

design a cake for a party celebrating his second inauguration. In 2017, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

had a Washington, D.C. bakery replicate Obama's cake made for his inauguration. There was discussion about whether Trump plagiarized Obama's cake. The matter raised the profile of copyright questions about cakes.

References

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Copyright of art on cakes

Copyright on cake design

Presidential inaugurations

References

External links