Tarot cards and blogging

[Tarot by G]

Can someone please assist? Again mods sorry if in wrong section still finding my feet in this forum.

Are you allowed to take pictures of cards, oracles, whatever card you may have to blog about? The reason I ask is because I think I read somewhere that Doreen virtue doesn't allow this?

I have soooooo many decks I want to do an exercise. I want to pick a card a day from a different deck and then see which deck is best for me to work with. I have some decks still in plastic. I am a deck addict but I want to spread myself I want to use all of them. Somehow.
The 2 I use everyday are tea leaves cards and RW. I need to share myself hehe!

So I thought of posting a pick up on a blog of the card, then the meaning, then the real outcome .........

[Tarot by G]

Oh and of course a different deck a day

[Carla]

I'm not a mod but I have a blog. Not sure what the legal stand is on this, but most of us use card images. I am always careful to add a caption giving name of deck, publisher and date. I have a disclaimer on my home page saying no infringement of copyright intended. There are a few publishers who are cagey about it. I think Lo Scarabeo is one. If it's self-published, I usually email the author and ask if it's okay.

Maybe someone else on here can tell you the actual law.

[ThunderWolf]

I'm far from an expert, but as a website owner I have a tiny bit of experience with posting copyrighted information illegally.

What happened in my case was that I was asked to remove it, which I did. Nothing more was said about it.

Had I refused I suspect the strongest course available would have been for them to contact my webhost and have them deal with me. (They would have probably shut down my site until I removed it or would have just removed it themselves.)

If it had happened that way and the problem was still resolved I don't believe there would be any further repercussions so long as I didn't continue to do it in the future.

That's not to say that the copyright holder can't pursue matters in court, but to the best of my knowledge internet copyright law is sketchy even in those cases.

If you really would like to know about the legalities of it I would suggest doing a websearch on "fair use act".

[Elendil]

I blog each day with images of cards (usually three card readings) from a different deck each week. Some of the images have been removed (presumably by the webhost at the request of the copyright owner - and I have noticed that these images have been removed from my image hosting site as well). I seem to remember reading that you are allowed to post up to six individual images of a deck legally (although I may have imagined this). I always include publishing and copyright information about the decks that I use on my blog. I have contacted the deck designers in those cases where this is possible and have asked permission to post images (and have always had a courteous and positive response). I suppose that much depends on the rigour of the copyright owners and whether they will exercise their legal rights to have images removed or not (and whether or not, of course, they would prefer the free advertising of their deck). My blog does not seek to make any profit (so I assume there may be some leniency here - although, again, I don't really know). I have never been contacted personally and asked to remove images from my blog - although if this happened I would readily comply. The vast majority of my postings over the last year have been left intact.

I don't know whether this helps or not.

Elendil.

[gregory]

The six images thing is what Lo Scarabeo said was OK once - with permission.

I am told USGames are also co-operative for blogging purposes.

[Tarot by G]

Oh great thanks for the advice guys

[Rhoswen]

Here are some previous threads, and there may be others—as I can't find the one I was reading last night!

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=75304

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=138837

[Tarot by G]

Originally Posted by Rhoswen

Here are some previous threads, and there may be others—as I can't find the one I was reading last night!

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=75304

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=138837

Very much appreciated thank you so so much for taking the time to link those.