Update on Vanilla's Cupcakery website copyright issues

We just wanted to let you know we're aware of all the complaints against Vanilla's Cupcakery and appreciate all of you who've been in touch with them. One blogger (sorry, I don't have his URL in front of me) said that his fiance's photos has been used without permission and that Vanilla's said they were not aware of copyright infringement. I sent them an email that bounced back to me and haven't had a chance to call back. You will see that they have now updated their website to say "coming soon." Let this be a lesson to any future or current bakeries thinking of stealing photos; it builds ill will amongs potential customers.

Also, this is the Internet age (clearly). Your website speaks not only to customers in your local area, but to an international audience. As I meet more and more cupcake fans and bakers from around the world, I realize that we are all checking each other out, both as customers and cupcake fans and in some cases to see what other businesses our doing. Your website and business practices reflect on you in a wider sense. This is important to keep in mind when you are both setting up your website and handling all other aspects of yoru cupcake business.

Please do keep us posted in the comments or at cupcakestakethecake at yahoo.com - needless to say, what NOT TO DO as a bakery is steal other people's photos! Not only is it a violation of copyright law, but it's a disservice to your customers, since those are not the products you're offering.

I do want to clarify that their URL was not in the original article where I first heard about Vanilla's. I did a Google search on their name and easily found it, and noted in my post that clearly their site was not complete. However, that is no excuse for using stolen photos as placeholders and we in no way condone that. A major THANK YOU to Patti Kakes for her inquiries and research into whose photos were repurposed by Vanilla's and contacting us and the Flickr users in question.

Reader Heather of FuzzyKitty posted this photo on Flickr of Vanilla's Cupcakery's actual cupcakes:


Red Velvet, Creme Brulee, Birthday Cake, Triple Chocolate

She writes on her blog: (see also her previous post, "Jax cupcakes: stealing isn't cool")

I have had a change of heart after my last post about Vanilla’s Cupcakery. I decided to visit them at their Jacksonville location to see if the cupcakes looked like they did on the website. When I asked why the cupcakes looked so different they told me that they are in the process of having someone contracted through their webhost create their webpage and that they believe the photos on the website were stock photos. I have a feeling that whoever threw their website together stole the cupcake photos and added them to the site :( While I was in their shop they said that they have had some problems with their website; text was incorrect and their name was even spelled incorrectly. They even mentioned that the site was not supposed to be online yet and that they were in the process of taking it off line until it was complete with their very own photographs. This all made sense to me so I bought a red velvet and a creme brulee cupcake while Darrell picked out a triple chocolate and a birthday cake cupcake. All cakes were pretty good but I didn’t care for the overly sweet frosting of my red velvet or the dry cake in my creme brulee cupcake. Darrell said that he thought they were better than CamiCakes though!

I do want to go back to get a birthday cake cupcake of my own.

My take is that this is a triumph for the cupcake community as a whole. It also certainly has shown Vanilla's Cupcakery that they have to be on the ball and that even if they hired someone to do their website, it is their responsibility to make sure that person is using ethical business practices. I don't think this should be held against them forever and ever, and hope that Florida customers will check them out, and am glad they swiftly took down their placeholder site.

What do YOU think?