legal question

Don't know much about the legal aspect. Seems to me the owner is feeling jilted and p.o'd about you leaving, probably having difficulty finding a suitable replacement too. In the future make the goodbyes as brief as possible. If they ask you to stay on after your notice, you know there's trouble brewing and instead of blaming themselves for not acting quickly, there's always you to blame....

The pictures....In all honesty, both as an employer and a employee, snapshots of your work to go in your scrapbook or portfolio are fair game. Of course if you were printing a fancy cookbook with 200,000 editions and earning some serious coin, that would be a different situation, but it isn't the case. Don't think anyone would begrudge you to take snaps of your work for personal use, Might get sticky if the pics found their way on the web or magazines without the owner's permission, but for your own portfolio, I'd say go for it.

I don't think she has any right at all to keep you from using the pictures of work you've done. Your work, no matter whether you were employed by someone else or not, is still your work. It's common to keep a portfolio or even a website of work. Does she actually think that everyone who shows their portfolio was self employed when the pictures were taken? You were employed not owned by your ex-vindictive boss.


She's probably very afraid that you'll take your talent to her competition. Good luck!

Let me share this. In my life "before food service," or another field it was common to have people sign "covenants not to compete" and "proprietary secrets" documents. But we also knew they couldn't be effective, as they were virtually unenforceable. The courts will not remove a persons ability to make a living.

I really wouldn't agonize over this situation for a minute. It sounds as if you have a very inexperienced business owner that now feels threatened. Don't jump in to the fray, just keep going forward and smiling, no reason to fuel the insecurities; and hold your comments to others that might want to carry comments back and forth, stirring things up.

In the remote case that you get a letter from an attorney, still don't assume that the owner has a supportable position. You can get an attorney to write a threatening letter very easily, to attempt to bluff the other party into agreement, but that still doesn't mean that they have a legal standing........... it only means that they got paid to write a letter.

On the other hand, don't become derogatory or slanderous to the owner or business here, in this or any public forum. Attempting to intentionally harm a business is much different than you simply, going forward and promoting your skills.

If you are in business, you better realize people come and go, that's the way it is.

The cakes you did for your employer were "works for hire." Meaning that she owned the actual cake, not its image. But (and I'm no lawyer) it's not unusual to keep a portfolio of examples of the work you have done. You probably can't do the exact same design for someone else, but you can show what you did to give potential clients an idea of what you're capable of doing. If you make it clear in your portfolio (online or hard copy) that these are merely examples, and that you would create something similar but not identical, you probably should be all right.

I signed nondisclosure agreements with both a previous employer and a former client. It has been very easy to live with that. There are many ways to describe what you did/made without giving out the precise, detailed information. Fwiw, you can only patent a complete procedure. And I think you cannot copyright an individual recipe. Does that help?

I would tell your former boss to F&%$!!!! off, really. YOU did he cake it is your work, your old boss does not own the cake the person who purchased it does. Your ex-boss had no right to any of that unless you specifically signed an agreement to that effect, no one can own an idea especially in the food industry because chances are someone has done it before anyway. I would still display pictures of the cakes YOU made on YOUR website, I would remove all mention of your old boss and her business. Your old boss sounds like a real tool and I would not give her credit for anything except the opprotunity for working for her thats it.

As for pictures who cares whos camera took them, if you have them can someone really prove what camera they came from? As for displaying the pictues go for it unless the backround had a shot of the bakery or some sort if trademarked identification which places the cake at a certain location. They are pictures of YOUR work right?

As for your work being in a magazine, you are the one who made the cakes so why not be proud of that? You say "here is a cake I made when I worked at "blah, blah, blah" pretty sweet huh? As for copying a cake I do it all the time and so do many other people. I have even had at least one of my cakes copied by someone else, if anything I was flattered. How many brides bring in a picture and say that is the cake they want right? I did 2 this weekend and made 2 brides very happy and made my boss a couple of grand which made him happy which in turn makes my bank account happy.

All the cakes you do should be in some sort of portfolio so you can show people YOUR work when either looking for work or customers, that should be YOUR portfolio forever. Your job does not own you or your talent it is yours to do with as you like. Every job had their own portfolios and pictures but I HIGHLY recommend you have your own portfolio.

As for your last question I would not use pictures of cakes you were "helped" with to me they do not count. All your pictures should be with "the training wheels off" so to speak.

Sorry if I seem angry in this post but this is something that peeves me. Having been screwed myself once or twice, I can't really believe some of the stuff I hear from other people like yourself.
Regards, Rat.

I would go ahead and create my own portfolio and try to make peace with your former boss. First of all, you own the talent, and there's nothing she can do to take that. Just be confident that you can do better and just make your own cakes and take some pics. You'll be better off. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but in the long run you might even turn her into a friend. If you don't want anymore ill will, extend the gesture first. It costs you nothing. There's not much she can do but accept. You're in control of this one.

OK, let me start by saying that I am not a lawyer and I suggest you have a quick consultation with one just to air out your concerns and see what kind of legal ground you stand on.

That said, I can think of at least two examples of situations that are similar to your position which would back up your ability to use the photos as you wish.

I used to work as a salaried employee of an editorial publishing company. I worked as their test kitchen director and part of my duties was to develop recipes for publication and work as a food stylist when we photographed those recipes. Each issue included credits at the bottom of the page for both the developers and stylists. Once the issue was published everyone who worked on the magazine recieved "tear sheets" of the pages we worked on to use for our portfolios or as we saw fit. These tear sheets were provided to both salaried employees and freelancers. We were not given the original digital images, but that's beside the point. As long as we acknowledge the source of the photo and publisher, we could use the image to show examples of the work we performed.

This also holds true for the freelance food styling work that I do now. At the end of each shoot, the photographer gives me a disk with the images on it and my agreement with the magazine is that I do not use the image until that issue is on the newstands. I can put them on my website or print them out and include them in my portfolio book. I also have a portfolio disk that I send to prospective clients that has a slide show of images that I have styled with credits to the photographer and publisher. Even when I am hired to style shots for packaging and advertising, I can use those images for my promotional materials.

Like others here have said, your former employer owned the raw materials and work space as well as the finished product (to sell to their client) but she does not own your talent and skill. That is your intellectual property-especially if you took the initiative to expand that skill and property at your own expense. Did you sign a non-compete contract with her? If not, she has no legal grounds to threaten you if you choose to use your talent. While she might have a claim if you set up shop next door to her with an identical type of business, she cannot stop you from making a living using your talents and abilities.

Besides, she already gave you permission to use the images. Just because she dropped the ball on her end of that agreement, doesn't mean that she is not still bound by that verbal contract or that she can ammend that contract arbitrarily whenever she wants to.

My hunch is that she's angry at you for leaving her in a pinch. You certainly gave her ample time to hire a replacement. She's really just projecting her frustration on you because she did not act accordingly-now she finds herself up the proverbial polluted creek without a paddle and feels that her business is threatened. I've been in similar situations where I gave more than the necessary notice (thinking it was the right and courteous thing to do for my employer) only to be treated with contempt for affording them that courtesy. It really stinks to realize that someone you may have respected becomes so small minded and selfish in the end.

One other example: there is a woman (formerly a sculptor and art historian) that makes her living making fabulous cakes. Check them out at http://www.pollyscakes.com Her designs are original and copyrighted. The copyright however, does not stop people from using her ideas and selling them as their own. I've seen derivative versions of her cakes all over the place, but none are really as beautiful or accomplished as hers. I know that Polly is not running all over the place filing copyright infringement lawsuits right and left. She just relies on the superlative quality of her designs and product and keeps developing new ones.

lot's of misinformation posted in this thread.
If you were not contract labor,or assumed total liabilities for the sale, try to work something out with the owners. If not possible, document it and go forward.

I would agree with Panini.
If you want to use the designs, redo and reshoot.

I'm no lawyer either, and laws vary from state to state, but normally an employer would "own" things developed by you only if you signed a document stating that anything developed by you in the course of your work for them belongs to them. It seems to me that the designs you brought back from a class that you paid for yourself would belong to you rather than your employer. I doubt they would pursue anything legally, especially as it seems you signed no ownership contracts relating to concepts and designs. Even if you did, everyone knows you only have to alter it a little, such as changing one ingredient in a recipe to make it no longer proprietary. Very hard to prove "ownership". I don't think I'd worry about it if I were you. As for the magazine pictures, the best thing to do would be to contact the magazine for permission. They own the photos they took, and you probably could not use their pictures without permisssion. However, if they took a picture of a cake, and you took a picture of the same cake, you could use the picture you took, unless the magazine commissioned a particular cake for their shoot and paid for the making of it. Good luck with it.

Coming in late on this one, but thought I'd throw in my 2 cents for whatever it's worth.

First off, we're talking about different intellectual properties here, plus the real property of the cake.

Forget the actual cake. It's gone. What's at issue are the images of the cakes.

So, let's talk about the images. The photos you took yourself are yours, to do with as you like. You can hang them on your wall, display them on the internet, publish them in a book. There is no legal way she can compel you to not display them. Even if you had not had anything to do with the cake, this applies. You own the images and all rights to them.

The photos she took are, likewise, hers. In a pinch you'd have to demonstrate that you had permission to use them. If she denies that, you are merely in a pixxing contest; a she-said-she-said deal. In such a case, in a courtroom, she would likely win. We'll come back to that in a moment, as it's not a problem.

The other intelectual property is the design work that went into the cake. Here, again, that is yours. Unless there is a contract that specifically says all design output belongs to the shop, she cannot merely assume rights to your work. This cannot be stressed enough: In the absence of a rights transference document, you own the design!

Technically, what happened was that each time you made such a cake you granted her one-time rights to the design. And if you want to get sticky about it, if she (in the person of the shop) continues using that design, she's actually violating your rights, not the other way around.

Now, returning to the courtroom issue of you using her pix. It will never go that far. But if it did, and she won the case, what does that mean? She has not suffered damage---just the opposite. And she is not a professional photographer, and, thus, will not be awarded the industry standard value of an image. At the very worst, she'll win a cease & desist order, enjoining you from using those images anymore. In short, no big deal.

So, all in all, I would just continue doing what you're doing, and not worry about the vindictiveness of your former employer.

In all due respect, izbnso , we are not talking about right to work laws. What's at issue here is the disposition of intellectural and artistic property. The questions are: Who owns the images, and how can they be used.

Controlling law is not at the state level, but at the federal level, because we're talking about copyright law.

Eeyore's ex-boss isn't trying to prevent her from making a living. The vindictive bit_h is saying that only she has a right to any images of cakes produced in her shop.

As I detailed below, however, she is wrong on two counts. Given the facts as we know them (i.e., no formal contract to the contrary), the ex-boss owns neither the rights to the photos nor to the designs themselves. Eeyore owns both; and can dispose of them in any manner she chooses.

ok, let's just bash the owner.
If the owner booked the cake, detailed it out, took full liability to complete all the necessary actions to have this cake made and delivered for the customer, the pictures were taken of the owners cake. If you use these pictures to imply that you can preform the same service ( which Eeyore is not) you're abusing your privilege.
I have been in this situation numerous times before as most other posters have NOT. Let's not forget, the assembly and decorating is a small percentage of the contract. If I view someones website, and I see pic's, and I see prices, I assume that that person can book, bake, and take all liabilities it takes to fullfill the contract.
I don't have to have some sort of contract to give me the rights to this work. I can spend whatever it takes to get my way legally, as can the opposing side, that is the biggest problem with our legal society as we know it.
I have NEVER told someone not to use our companies pictures and have worked out numerous agreements to use pic's without the use of an attorney.
It appears that most posts are about common sense, I understand why some may think there is atristic whatever, but remember, someone has taken huge risks to let the work be performed.
I can't count the number of websites that use our products as their own, not from former employees, but just plain covered. There are two companies in my city that are posting that they are the number 1 pick for the year in the Knot Mag. So bogus!!! Makes one want to dump the whole ball of wax, mainly from the thinking of as most..
Just a view from the other side.:suprise::smiles::eek::talk:
had to edit caus that didn't make sense.
What I guess I'm trying to say is post something to show people what you have done, not implying that you can do it.

Owning your talents

I don't know what the fuss is about, I know that the Baking and Pastry world is not as "sweet" as it sounds..it's very competitive and cut throat...but if we do not share the art..it will "DIE".

I call SUGAR, the "LIVING" art form because it is constantly evolving..to the point that it actually folds back onto itself and the old becomes new.

That said..lol

I had a very talented young man helping me out in my shop, and we worked so well together that all I had to do was explain my vision or do some chicken scratch on a piece of paper and he would make my "vision" come to life.

I tried to hire him as my apprentice, but he was snatched up as an assistant pastry chef by some trendy restaurant.

I, in no way would stand in his way and his chef jacket is still hanging in my shop. All of the cakes that he worked on, he is welcomed to use in his resume portfolio even though they are MY artistic visions, they are HIS manifested talent.

When we take classes, don't we bring back our methods from celebrated teachers to use in our shops?

I don't know, it just sounds like Sour grapes and you need to just make like a duck and let this run off your back like water.

It's your talent, right? The next person won't be able to reproduce your cakes.

Change a couple of key design elements and take new pictures if you can't use the old ones, don't we do that all the time with each other's work anyway?

Good luck in your new venture and keep us posted!