 |
gregory
Administrator
| Joined: | Wed Sep 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 3281 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
I suspect the jewellery is OK now.....
|
|
|
debra
Member
| Joined: | Sun Sep 9th, 2007 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1115 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
13TH Tribesman wrote:Can anyone help me with the 'Astro-Mythological Lenormand/Grand Jeu'? Could images scanned from a deck from over a century ago and incorporated into artwork be considered an infringement of Grimaud's copyright on the modern reprint of this deck?
I don't think so.
Magic Realist / Baba Prague is selling bags with prints made from scans of original Oswald Wirth and Rider Waite decks, and they are careful about copyright law.
|
|
|
13TH Tribesman
Member
| Joined: | Sun Oct 18th, 2009 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 35 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
They do sell some appetizing stuff, and Debra, I think I may have to take a wander to salivate over those bags. Why did you have to tell me that!
Seriously though, thank you. Maybe I can drop them a line asking their advice...Don't want to intrude too much if they're busy though. Ho hum...
|
|
|
BabaStudio
Member
|
It's okay, I'm here! We took our prints from original sources - the Wirth images are from a 1926 deck that we own (we were lucky enough to buy it here in an antique shop). The RWS images are from an original 1910 deck that a collector owns (I won't say who in case it's private, but many people know) - he was kind enough to allow us to use some of the pictures.
The point is that you need to use images from original cards, NOT from reproductions that are more recently published*. While most people agree that RWS is no longer in the copyright of US Games, their own version of the deck IS still owned by them.
Wirth is complicated but seems to be regarded as being out of copyright due mainly to the fact that copyright was not renewed when it originally expired. This is actually somewhat arguable, but the general consensus seems to be that it's okay to use the pictures now. For example the reproduction of the Wirth majors by Editions de l'Aigle seems to have been fine and as far as I know no estate objected to it.
Again though, the important point is to use originals, NOT a publisher's more recent version.
* BTW, there is a famous legal case, Bridgeman v Corel which would indicate that it may even be okay to use modern versions as long as they are exact reproductions. Personally I think this is not as safe as using the originals - when you use originals it's still perhaps not entirely clear-cut (copyright can be quite complex when things went out of copyright at different times in the 20th century in different countries) but it's much more so than simply, for example, scanning a modern USG deck and using it - which I think would be unwise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Corel_Corp.
________________
Disclaimer. This is my opinion offered to be helpful, but I am not a lawyer and sorry, I'm not going to get into long discussions of the finer points of the copyright of these decks.
Last edited on Tue Aug 3rd, 2010 09:01 pm by BabaStudio
|
|
|
13TH Tribesman
Member
| Joined: | Sun Oct 18th, 2009 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 35 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Disclaimer noted, and salutations and thanks to you - for guidance. Well, I have antique Grand Jeu cards and designs upon integrating scans of them into art works. So this gives me some ideas. I also have an old (100yr+) Etteilla which is incomplete, but which will serve nicely for my purposes.
I would be interested too in locating hi-res scans of the Visconti-Sforza - I assume such a thing exists - again for integration into artwork.
I have no interest in RWS for these purposes, as previously noted, I remain happy to use that for reading/study etc, but it establishes a notion -where copyright has hitherto been rigorously enforced - relating to a deck of similar age to the ones I mention (not including the Visconti etc) which have existing copyrights upon them by differing people and so assists me in my decision-making process.
My kind thanks for your time,
13th
|
|
|
Joanna Hargrove
Member
| Joined: | Sun Jul 18th, 2010 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 8 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
I work for Barnes and Noble as a Merchandiser, and with the roll out of our new nook (ereader), I needed to take a crash course in copyright laws because some of the ebooks are free, and express permission from authors/copyright owners are required before converting text to ebook format. Of course, nobody has the right to give out "free books" which includes scanning pages and posting online w/o express permission if copyright is still intact. Here are the basics of copyright law as I understand it:
Anything that was published prior to 1923 is under public domain and not covered by copyright law. Therefore, the original decks, as Karen mentioned, are completely legal to scan.
Any works that were published with a copyright notice between 1923-1963 and renewed are still covered under copyright and the term expires 95 years after the publication date. So, with US Games, if they published their own version, based on the original which wasn't under copyright law at the time, their version would fall under -this category. It gets a little complicated.
As the years go on, more work will become public domain, as there is a lot more to it than what I mentioned. For example:
unpublished works from authors have a copyright that extends from the life of the author+70 years. So any unpublished works today (2010) is public domain if the author died before 1940.
anonymous works, such as work done under pseudonym or for hire, works where the author's death is not known, the copyright term is 120 years after the date of creation. So that would include today, in 2010 anything from a questionable source that was printed/published before 1890.
Anything that was published between 1923 and 1977 without a copyright notice is public domain. If published and copyrighted prior to 1977, works retain copyright for 95 years
Anything published at anytime by a US gov't official or federal employee as part of their work/official duties is public domain.
I also know that here in the U.S., if I were to write something up for my work here at B&N, its officially company property and I'm not protected under the copyright laws (so don't doodle at work! ). For example, I have written my own guidelines and curriculum for training that is more specific than what is presented in our official training manual. It's not likely that this would happen, but if someone from corporate happened to visit my store from NYC and saw my training manual, or got wind of it somewhere else, they could print, publish, and present the material as their own, copyrighted by B&N. I think this is the sort of thing that is covered by corporate authorship, too.
~Joanna
|
|
|
Joanna Hargrove
Member
| Joined: | Sun Jul 18th, 2010 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 8 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Also, this is probably more in depth than anyone wanted to know about copyrights, but in case anyone else was interested, my understanding is that the way the laws were first enacted, at least in the U.S. were to protect authors who published work before having the option to use copyrighting to protect their intellectual property. These aren't clear cut rules that apply to modern works because the laws have been amended over the years, affecting when the work was published. For example, there were some years where the author had 5 years to copyright work with notice before the work went to public domain.
For works first published or registered in the U.S., the safe bet is to assume that if the work was created after 1923, the work is protected under copyright law for either 70 years after the death of the author, or, if its the work of a corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first. So, when in doubt, its best to write expressly to the author, their representation, or their estate and get express permission from the copyright holder. You can check to see if there is the copyright stamp too with a publication which will show the copyright date if there is one.
The fair use act is a bit different, but making copies of something you already own for your own personal use and scanning/copying someone else's work and presenting it as your own or merchandising it is completely different. I don't know if there are international standards for the copyright laws, I imagine there has to be some kind of law in other countries where they recognize works that were published and copyrighted abroad??
~Joanna
|
|
|
Joanna Hargrove
Member
| Joined: | Sun Jul 18th, 2010 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 8 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
gregory wrote:
.
Like the AT member who posted a load of full decks and has now taken them down, and like Solandia, who has decided not to allow links to sites which post full decks, there is a copyright issue here, and multiply, for one, certainly does foster sales of appallingly poor reproductions which damage the reputations of the genuine publishers; Karen has said that the sold images had put people off buying MRP decks. You do also get unscrupulous publishers whop turn out poor quality pirate decks.
On the other hand, I don't think anyone wanting a real art deck - Adam's or anyone else's - would be satisfied with printing off their own copy.
For me, the copyright law is what it is, if you are going to show scanned images, they need to be images of cards that no longer all under the copyright notice. I haven't seen the tutorial, but I don't think its really up to the site owner as to why he chooses to scan the images, its not his decision to make.
The ethics though, in my opinion are more about intellectual property, then the money itself. These cards are your creation, your babies, and if the person doesn't understand that, he/she has never had an original idea in their life.
I fully agree with you, Adam, but I wanted to ask you and other tarot creators if piracy was very prevalent? The reason I ask is that as Gregory mentioned, quality prints would not be able to be reproduced from cheap scans. I wouldn't buy a pirate copy, i wouldn't consider it an addition to any collection. i do like seeing images online, but i look at the artist's site. however, b/c i look at images online, please don't think i agree with scanning decks the way the argument was presented here. its very presumptuous of people to think its their right to do so!
i'm sorry you are having this problem. i can't believe people acquire shitty decks this way. why not pay money for the actual quality original? what's the point in paying for crap?
~Joanna
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
Joanna Hargrove wrote: Anything that was published between 1923 and 1977 without a copyright notice is public domain.
I think you'll find that this doesn't apply in all countries. Here in the UK a work is copyright by default - it needs no copyright notice. The copyright only expires 70 years after the death of the artist.
Pen
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
And re. copyright of the Smith Waite, this is from Mary Greer's newsletter:
There’s also a fascinating interview with Stuart Kaplan by Dr. Stephen Winick, Folklore Specialist for the Library of Congress. What will be of great interest to many in the tarot world is Kaplan’s discussion of the controversy over the rights to Waite’s deck. Kaplan explains, “The copyright protection on the Rider-Waite Tarot runs to 2021, which is seventy years after the date of death of the artist [Pamela Colman Smith].” While many will want to argue this—that U.S. copyright places works around the world prior to 1923 in the public domain, or that the art was a “work for hire” and so copyright ends in 2012 (seventy years after the death of Waite)—Kaplan has sued twice and won both cases. The 2021 date and the creative rights of Pamela Colman Smith have yet to be tested in court.
PenLast edited on Tue Aug 10th, 2010 08:34 am by goldenweb
|
|
|
gregory
Administrator
| Joined: | Wed Sep 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 3281 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
I am pretty sure Kaplan is wrong and that 2012 holds - at least in Europe. He may be able to pull it in the US courts. The work for hire issue is an important one, even if he doesn't choose to acknowledge that. We shall see. His attitude really diminishes him, in my eyes.
I thinkthe page Holly Voley links to is closer to the truth. There is also a good article in Manteia (google and download the pdf !)
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
Gregory, you may well be right, but I for one wouldn't like to take him on... would you?
Pen 
|
|
|
gregory
Administrator
| Joined: | Wed Sep 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 3281 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
I would LOVE to in the English courts, YES  Will you all chip in ?
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
Life is complicated enough already...
I would dearly love to see a 'Bridgeman vs Corel' type case resolved here in the UK though.
Pen
|
|
|
gregory
Administrator
| Joined: | Wed Sep 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 3281 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
You and me both !
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
Informative links - thanks Karen. It'll happen eventually - hopefully sooner rather than later.
Pen
|
|
|
nexus7
Member
| Joined: | Sat Oct 31st, 2009 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 20 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Well this thread was depressing to read.
I think my Pack was copied from Ophalese, though the copies are not especially good and I have updated several cards recently. However, I did find that the company beginning with 'M' had featured them but when I complained, I noticed that they were gone. Better go check again, though. Pity there may be others eslewhere Idon't know about.
I do hope that things change here. What happened to that law the Bush government had been threatening to pass, on orphaned work?
I had a bit of a barney a couple of years ago with a sort of friend I know, who has been successful in publishing several books. He suggested to me that getting hung up on intellectual property or publishing rights was 'bourgeois' and I should be over it. I notice that his own positon is pretty comfortable though and his intellectual rights pretty well assured....
Last edited on Mon Sep 6th, 2010 10:11 pm by nexus7
|
|
|
gregory
Administrator
| Joined: | Wed Sep 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 3281 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
Someone told me they don't actually HAVE any of this stuff; they just want you to pay before being told that they don't have that particular deck. Has anyone paid to see if they really ARE in breach of copyright or if they are just monumental liars ?
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
The copyright watermark that Ly puts on images of his work that he posts online is missing, so perhaps they do have it.
As for paying these people, for whatever end...
Pen
|
|
|
gregory
Administrator
| Joined: | Wed Sep 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 3281 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
No - I wouldn't. But I am aware that a few people DID at the beginning before all the spamming and hacking attacks began. If anyone HERE is one of those people....
And - there ARE some scans online without the watermarks - strangely - the ones shown are - the same six cards as those on Adam's advertisement page - where there are no watermarks....
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
gregory wrote:
And - there ARE some scans online without the watermarks - strangely - the ones shown are - the same six cards as those on Adam's advertisement page - where there are no watermarks....
Ahhh... I'd forgotten those - that almost certainly means they haven't actually got it.
Pen
|
|
|
gregory
Administrator
| Joined: | Wed Sep 12th, 2007 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 3281 |
| Status: |
Online
|
|
My thoughts exactly.... BAD BAD PEOPLE !
(It seems to me that they were identified as a site that actually simply steals money after they have your details... I think jmd posted about it all on his website ...)
Yup.
Here is the article.
Last edited on Sun Dec 5th, 2010 12:09 pm by gregory
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
Frightening... As Robert says in the comments section below the article, '...may his karma come quickly to him.'
Pen
|
|
|
Geslina
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jun 17th, 2011 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 28 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
I am confused. Why would someone posting scans of decks hurt sales of someone selling said decks? When i research a deck to buy, I am usually pleased to find scans of the cards somewhere, so I can get an idea of what I am buying. Only one store in my general area has an impressive set of sample decks for you to look at before purchasing, the rest of the stores, you find out after you buy what all the cards look like.
One would think that these posted scans would be free advertising for the creators and sellers of the original decks- unless I am missing something here? Are people able to print out the card images from these sites, and then make them into decks to use or sell? And how would one know if they were getting one of these bootleg decks?
|
|
|
tarotcadet
Member
|
In my other life, I am a jazz musician. Copyright is a big, big issue for those artists whose works are being pirated.
|
|
|
AdamMcLean
Member
|
Geslina wrote:
I am confused. Why would someone posting scans of decks hurt sales of someone selling said decks? When i research a deck to buy, I am usually pleased to find scans of the cards somewhere, so I can get an idea of what I am buying. Only one store in my general area has an impressive set of sample decks for you to look at before purchasing, the rest of the stores, you find out after you buy what all the cards look like.
Of course it damages sales. I had to give up publishing tarot decks because people were scanning my decks in high resolution and making them available on the internet.
One would think that these posted scans would be free advertising for the creators and sellers of the original decks- unless I am missing something here?
One does not need high res printable scans of all the cards in a deck to decide whether of not to buy it. All one needs are medium res images of a few representative cards.
Are people able to print out the card images from these sites, and then make them into decks to use or sell? And how would one know if they were getting one of these bootleg decks?
If high res scans are available you can be sure that someone will exploit these and make up some copies and sell these. Once high res images get onto the internet file sharing sites or bundled into torrent files there is nothing the original publisher can do. In my case I usually spent many hours setting up the artwork and then paid the artist for their work. To have this stolen from me, just brought my tarot publishing project to a stop, as there would be no point in my investing my time and money into something that can put on the internet and my sales decimated.
These parasites and criminals who scan and distribute other people's copyright material just destroy publishing and make it difficult for anyone to sustain a tarot publishing project.
|
|
|
Geslina
Member
| Joined: | Fri Jun 17th, 2011 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 28 |
| Status: |
Offline
|
|
Thank you very much for clarifying this for me. As an artist, I know something of the situation with theft of images online - and I hope you didn't feel that I was playing down the seriousness of this - I am new to collecting tarot, and was curious about the facts from your end.
I haven't purchased any very expensive or rare decks myself, but wonder if the theft is also going on with less expensive decks, such as the many available on ebay. I have received decks that obviously had been shrink wrapped by the seller, I could tell that the cards, though in new shape, were not fresh wrapped from the publishing warehouse. I also received a deck/book set with a phony autograph, which made me wonder if the rest of the items were phony.
You would think it would not be easy to successfully replicate a tarot deck, but I guess with technology these days, anything is possible....and to my inexperienced eye, it would be hard to tell an original from a fake. What are the warning signs before buying? I guess it is a good thing that I prefer my cards to be new, so most I get directly from the publisher...however, since spending time here, and on your website (adam) and seeing all the beautiful less readily available tarot decks, I have a feeling that pretty soon the commercial decks are not going to be enough to satisfy me.
One thing you said, about not needing high res. scans of the entire deck to decide to buy it - while this is true in some cases, and I have certainly bought decks based on the few cards show on aeclectic or other blog reviews, there have been some decks I have regretted buying because those few cards in the reviews were the best ones - for example, the minors were very dull/lacking. So, there are many times when considering a deck that I will go looking for a more complete view of the cards. It doesn't necessarily have to be high res scans of the entire deck, and often I can find a youtube review or something similar which will be enough.
Thanks again for your reply -Last edited on Thu Jul 28th, 2011 07:28 pm by Geslina
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
Hope everyone is having a happy holiday.
I've been searching for something. I seem to remember Baba posting an example of a Cease and Desist letter - either here or over at AT, but I can't find it. Can anyone point me in the right direction - I don't want to bother her by emailing over the holiday.
Thanks,
Pen
|
|
|
goldenweb
Member
|
Thank you gregory - my head's so full up that memory plays tricks on me sometimes - the example letter is a good model and looks easily adaptable.
Hope you're having a good holiday.
Pen x
|
|
|
earlm
Member
|
Hi Baba,
I have a question for based on this post. How is it possible for you, by doing nothing, to LOSE copyright on something you possess the copyright for? Now this I find disturbing.
Thanks,
Earl
|
|
|
Current time is 05:43 pm | Page:   1 2 3 4 5 |
|
|
|
