Who Owns a Tarot Spread?

[gregory]

If you add a statement like, "please credit if you reblog," or "please don't remove credit," people are usually pretty good about it.

Just last night, a photo I took of a piece of jewelry I made was reblogged a few dozen times on Tumblr. I was kind of bemused because I posted it a while back and then suddenly last night it took off... anyway, nobody removed my credit.

That's how it should be. I know a LOAD of people actually COPIED MiShell's beautiful jewellery and took to selling it, after pix showed up on line - which is why she now has to show much less of it. Which in turn cuts down on sales, as people can SEE less to choose from, and the whole thing is NOT GOOD

It's not so much the legality thing, Niclas, it's the morality. The web is a very grey area and it would be nice if people were a lot more respectful of one another.

 

[tarotbear]

If you add the credit line as a meme to the picture it would be hard to edit off ... ? Kind of like when people add watermarks through the middle of a pic of their card design ... ?

 

[Laura Borealis]

Yep, that was suggested earlier in the thread too

 

[tarotbear]

On the same page of pictures where that credit line was mentioned were some nice pics of someone's stained glass boxes - one was business card size so he had HIS business card in it ... hard to edit out!

 

[Laura Borealis]

On the same page of pictures where that credit line was mentioned were some nice pics of someone's stained glass boxes - one was business card size so he had HIS business card in it ... hard to edit out!

Was it this? It just came across my Tumblr dash.

Clever way to make sure the credit stays with your picture!

That's why I think making a graphic to go along with your tarot spread is a great idea. People will reblog the graphic, they won't bother to type out the spread into a new post.

 

[tarotbear]

YES! Not only does he have his name in the border of the pic but he has his business card in the box- brilliant!

 

[Teheuti]

To answer the question about the Celtic Cross Spread - no exact source can be found for it, but a very similar spread exists in some turn-of-the-century cartomancy books. Usually it's just the basic cross where one says a similar memonic when laying the cards: This is above you; this is below you . . .. etc.

If I remember correctly either Waite or Yeats mentioned an old layout that could have been some form of the Celtic Cross or the cartomancy spread above. It could have been Yeats' uncle, George Pollexfen whose card reading ability Yeats appreciated very much. Waite was much in awe of the reading ability of his 2nd wife, Mary Broadbent Schofield, and he was not above asking her to do readings for him on very mundane matters. I speculate (with no proof) that she may have been "Minetta" who wrote two books on cartomancy for his publisher during the time of their marriage.

 

[Chrystella]

I will pursue this. But not if it means knocking myself out. If it's easy enough, and convenient enough, I will pursue these people. But the sad fact is that this spread is in a LOT of places. Doing anything about it is a big job.

One thing you can try is set up a Google Alert for it, maybe "Haunted House tarot spread" and other variations of that. What this does is search the web for this phrase and when it turns up, it will send you an email with the links. You can then go take a look and, if it's your spread, decide how to proceed.

Here's Pinterest's page on Copyrights and Tumblr's DMCA Copyright Notifications page.

How on earth do you know that your spread is absolutely yours and that you created it and it was never thought of or created by anybody else anywhere else prior to you doing it?

Copyright doesn't protect an idea, only the material expression of it. So, it may not matter if anyone else thought about the spread. If Metafizzypop was the first to write it down and publish it, she could have a claim to it.

 

[Teheuti]

Copyright doesn't protect an idea, only the material expression of it. So, it may not matter if anyone else thought about the spread. If Metafizzypop was the first to write it down and publish it, she could have a claim to it.

She would have claim to her particular and specific way of describing it. But, to legally enforce that claim is extremely expensive. It doesn't cost anything except time to ask people to include an acknowledgement of her.

One way to claim a spread is to use your name in the title: "Metafizzypop's Haunted House Spread". AND include a credit line with or without a Creative Commons license notice.

 

[tarotbear]

And what exactly is a 'Creative Commons License'?