Premium German Rider Waite with Pam A crackle brown back and 1909 colouring

Denever

In case anyone's interested in the German-language version, here are the crackle back and the Rosicrucian versions side by side. The crackle back, which is the premium version, feels just slightly heavier and slicker (in a pleasant way) to me, but I prefer the back of the other deck. Otherwise, I can't see any difference.
 

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gregory

Does the USG copyright not apply to the giant RWS? My printed in China deck has "© 1971, 2010 U.S. GAMES SYSTEMS, INC." but there is no copyright mark on my AGM deck. The AGM titles are in English but they are not the hand printed Colman Smith titles, which are on the China deck.
It applies. That's why it isn't on the AGM site any more. They can sell it in countries other than the US and UK, but their own site can't be sure where the orders are from, so... But it's still on amazon.de - who can (I quite often get messages that they can't send to me, on various things...)
 

EmpyreanKnight

I wonder how they'd pull the same trick on 2021, gregory. It might expose them to a measure of opprobrium if they do that.
 

Darytessekhmet

I am so upset at myself that I did not order it sooner.
 

EmpyreanKnight

In case anyone's interested in the German-language version, here are the crackle back and the Rosicrucian versions side by side. The crackle back, which is the premium version, feels just slightly heavier and slicker (in a pleasant way) to me, but I prefer the back of the other deck. Otherwise, I can't see any difference.

Ah but they're lovely. I'm not sold on the Rosicrucian back tho.
 

Darytessekhmet

Can people from Germany or other countries buy English versions? And maybe help the poor people of the US?
 

EmpyreanKnight

What happened in 2012?

I'm not very good with legalese, but I'll try my best to present the issues in a nutshell.

As far as I know, in the UK and US a work falls into the public domain 70 years after the author's death - meaning basically that anyone can use it to his/her own purpose/s. Waite died in 1942, so the copyright should have expired by 2012.

However, US Games contested that Pamela Colman-Smith is also a copyright owner even tho some laws posit the copyright owner as the person who commissions the drawings and not necessarily the one who executed it. Because of this and because Smith died in 1951, US Games maintained that the copyright would only expire 70 years after that - on 2021.
 

FLizarraga

Ah but they're lovely. I'm not sold on the Rosicrucian back tho.


Neither am I, for some reason. I seem to recall the Deluxe has gold borders --or maybe I'm mixing things up?


I'm not very good with legalese, but I'll try my best to present the issues in a nutshell.

As far as I know, in the UK and US a work falls into the public domain 70 years after the author's death - meaning basically that anyone can use it to his/her own purpose/s. Waite died in 1942, so the copyright should have expired by 2012.

However, US Games contested that Pamela Colman-Smith is also a copyright owner even tho some laws posit the copyright owner as the person who commissions the drawings and not necessarily the one who executed it. Because of this and because Smith died in 1951, US Games maintained that the copyright would only expire 70 years after that - on 2021.


Good recap! :)

The problem, as gregory wisely points out, is that we could still not be out of the woods in 2021. Maybe they'll track some Rider heir or something. Greed is a powerful thing.
 

Le Fanu

It will stop in 2022 when even US Games will have to concede the copyright on the RWS will have expired.
Hate to disappoint you - it will go on FOREVER. With lawyers that good...

Am misunderstanding something here - are they saying in the email that they can't sell other languages (like German, Spanish, Portuguese) in UK / US outlets or is that essentially an "it won't ever be printed in English"?