Who Owns a Tarot Spread?

Metafizzypop said:

I think that the spread just may in fact be copyrighted. As I mentioned earlier, it appeared in an e-book published by AT. I did some research just now and I found that those e-books do say copyright by Aeclectic Tarot. The spread also appeared in the e-magazine of the American Tarot Association. I think it's called Tarot Reflections. And I am reasonably certain that that's copyright also. Can the rules be different just because this stuff is on the internet? I don't see why they should be. Copyright is copyright.

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I think the place to start is to contact the person/site who is posting it and explain this to them and politely ask to 'be given credit where credit is due.' It can't hurt and they may be glad to do it; far simpler that retaining a lawyer. You should also contact the ATA and let them know about it, too.

I do tend to believe, though, that once you put ANYTHING on the Internet you will never get credit for it; if you don't want it stolen - don't put it up. This is why I only put a limited amount of my Everyman Tarot cards on the Internet - so that someone doesn't download them and print it off themselves.

Just last week in a restaurant I overheard someone at the next table comment that she found her book (or maybe eBook) was being GIVEN AWAY FOR FREE by a third party. I introduced myself and interrupted her conversation and told her if her book is being published that she needs to contact the publisher right away. She seemed hesitant. I said "It's not just affecting your royalties - it is affecting the sales and your Publisher has a right to know why 'your book isn't selling.' They are losing the royalty, too!" All she has to do is call or email her publisher first...but it took a lot of convincing on my part.

Stand up for your rights!

I don't understand why you are so upset about it.

Sar said:

I don't understand why you are so upset about it.

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I can understand why MFP is upset; after all - there is no credit being given.

Realistically, a 'spread' is something 'for people to use' - and if you bought a book and used a spread in it, the cost of the book purchase 'gives' you the right to use it - can you imagine buying a cookbook and not being able to use the recipes without express permission of the author?

Similarly - In the birthday thread are all sorts of wonderful pictures of cakes, cookies, and cupcakes made with Tarot motifs. If you took a copy of the photo to a bakery and asked for 6 dozen Tarot card cupcakes - do you owe the owner of the photograph a royalty? Technically - no - you can make one copy of anything for your own use - but also technically those are RWS cards which are a copyrighted image - but since they will be eaten and therefore 'destroyed' I don't think US Games can do too much besides grumble.

MFP is stating - I believe - that here they created a specific original spread and now they find it being used WITHOUT CREDIT BEING GIVEN - and I agree that giving credit for something you didn't create is the first thing owed an artist in any medium.

You have to pick your battles. You can use X number of words exerpted from a text someone else wrote and it's fine. The number of words used in "your" spread probably falls within that legal limit, first of all.

Second of all, you can't copyright an idea and a Tarot spread might fall into that category in my opinion.

Thirdly, what's the difference? Are you going to patent that spread and make a thousand bucks off of it? Heck, no! It's not that precious.

Last but not least---you're getting upset because they used your spread idea without giving credit to Metafizzypop???

Hmm, Pinterest does seem to be special case.
I found the whole Bonefire deck on one board devoted to it. It does have an app, so that must be how it got there. Not sure how this works, but the resolution seems too good for scans.
It doesn't really bother me, except, like you TB I never posted the whole deck anywhere, in fact roughly half. the Bonefire board is credited, which is good, but I rather wish it hadn't been so thorough in pinning up every card.

That's an interesting question. I am currently working on a book that will contain some Tarot spreads in it, that I will invent just for the book. I presume that if it is published in a book, and sold, then it cannot be reproduced without the author's permission. Although maybe you need to state that somewhere in the opening text before the book starts?

Babs

wooden-eye said:

Hmm, Pinterest does seem to be special case.
I found the whole Bonefire deck on one board devoted to it. It does have an app, so that must be how it got there. Not sure how this works, but the resolution seems too good for scans.
It doesn't really bother me, except, like you TB I never posted the whole deck anywhere, in fact roughly half. the Bonefire board is credited, which is good, but I rather wish it hadn't been so thorough in pinning up every card.

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Pinterest WILL remove pins that are copyright infringing if you (as the copyright holder) notify them. I'm unsure of the process, as I've never needed it myself, but I've been notified when pins I've repinned from another user have disappeared from my boards because they were found to be violating copyright.

Hey everybody, thanks for all the thoughts and ideas. It looks like a tough issue. The internet is full of stolen material, it seems.

What bothers me is that they used the spread without permission. If they had asked, I probably would have said yes, assuming that they did indeed give me credit. If they had done it without permission, but at least given credit, I'd have let it go. I'd have grumbled, but I'd let it go.

But no permission and no credit really bites.

With something small, like a tarot spread, if there's no credit given, it's easy to think that the poster/blogger/whatever is the person who created the spread. There's no way to know.

If Pinterest does remove copyright-violating items, it's worth looking into.

At this point, I'm not looking for credit. I want the spread taken off the site(s).

SunChariot said:

That's an interesting question. I am currently working on a book that will contain some Tarot spreads in it, that I will invent just for the book. I presume that if it is published in a book, and sold, then it cannot be reproduced without the author's permission. Although maybe you need to state that somewhere in the opening text before the book starts?

Babs

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The 'active' word here is 'reproduced'. If you have a book with spreads in it you are expecting that someone will 'use' the spreads to do a Reading - isn't that the purpose? Of course it is...look back at my cookbook analogy.

Technically - anything published/printed is automatically copyrighted by the publisher - who may also be the author. Technically - you can put all the warnings you want in the front of your book - it doesn't mean anyone will pay attention to them!

Realistically somewhere in the front of any book should be a statement that says the contents of the book are entirely copyrighted (year) by (whomever) and all future reproduction without prior written consent of (whomever) is against the law.

IANAL, but relatively well-educated in copyright matters, however in a different legal system, specifically the German one. So, what I want to express may well be irrelevant under anglo/american law.

Over here, the spread (as in, how to actually DO the spread) would not and could not be copyrighted - the copyright would only cover the words you used to describe it, as in: the precise sentences you posted or sentences rather similar. The reason is, copyright protects intellectual or artistic expression in a concrete work, not methods to do something.

To actually protect a spread (as a "modus operandi") it would have to be patented, actually.

Expressions of art can get copyright, methods to do something (usually in a technically more challenging way, of course) can get patented, roughly speaking - and from the little I know about your system beyond the pond, it is not different there.