Law on taking photos of toys and posting them online

[mama tee]

I'm not a lawyer.

I think this is online practice for most sellers and I'm not aware of anyone running into trouble with the law.

Nice share by the way re: Mattel loses court battle to defend Barbie's honour.

 

[KmH]

Lots, and lots of sellers have gotten into trouble with the law over copyright.
Lots of sellers have been forced out of business because of the big dollar copyright infringement penalties they owe to copyright owners.

If a copyright owner is able to prove an infringement was willful, and seeks statutory damages, each infringement can be worth as much as $150,000 plus the copyright owners attorney fees and court costs. If you are found to have infringed the copyright on 5 action figures in a suit seeking statutory damages that can add up to $750,000 plus the attorney fees and court costs. Call it an even $1,000,000.
If the action is for actual damages, they can also seek all monies the infringer earned from the infringement and attorney fees and court costs.

A lot of infringement actions get settled before the parties get to court, and massive attorney charges are accumulated by both sides.
It's pretty stupid to fight a battle you can't possibly win. Settle out of court and minimize your losses.

 

[unpopular]

You don't have to be selling the character or its image either, just using it in association with promoting your own business is enough.

This is where things get really complicated. Say you have a licensed Disney character which you are selling. Taking a photograph of that product for demonstration purposes is not likely a copyright violation. You are documenting the product, and not creating a derivative work.

However, if you do the same in an advertisement promoting your business you would *certainly* be in violation, as you're implying an association or endorsement by Disney through a derivative work. (it's not "would be enough", rather, this is the more significant example of infringement)

And this is where it gets complicated for the OP. Because s/he's selling cakes and not Disney figures, I just don't know. This is compounded by the fact that the figure is licensed, and is demonstrative of the product - a product that happens to have a licensed Disney figure.

There is a temptation to over-simplify copyright law, but this is an extremely complex aspect of a very complex area of law.