Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

If you make art out of copyrighted or trademarked cartoon characters (e.g., your presumably edible gingerbread house) and do so only for personal, non-commercial use, you are unlikely to be approached by the company's lawyers and/or asked to cease and desist. If you take a picture of your gingerbread house and post it on the cartoon's fan page, this is similarly unlikely to create any issues from an IP infringement standpoint. If you intend on commercial use, however, that is a different story entirely. The smart move would be for your to take your business plan and a mock-up of what you intend to do to a competent local IP lawyer and get it vetted before you do anything.

So your work and photo of that would be considered derivative works and therefore infringing. But doing exactly what you describe would not expose you to any claims practically speaking because the copyright holders would likely just consider it "fan art" and the courts would consider the claim de minimus (meaning too nominal to bother the courts with).

That said, if you are using the work to promote yourself or are commercializing it in some way this can certainly lead to a legal problem.

If you have real concerns, I would talk it over with a lawyer in private. If you would like to discuss further over a free phone consult, feel free to contact me anytime that is convenient.

Our firm is now referred by the American Bar Association (see under the New York section):

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/delivery_legal_services/resources/programs_to_help_those_with_moderate_income.html

Kind regards,

Frank

www.LanternLegal.com

866-871-8655

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DISCLAIMER: this is not intended to be specific legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. No attorney-client relationship is formed on the basis of this posting.