Game of Hope Lenormand

Tag_jorrit

The British Museum has some very lovely old cards, called the Game of Hope that were the first Lenormand cards. British Museum cards

If you want a copy of some cards like the ones they used 175 years ago, you can get some for yourself here.
 

TaliTarot

Original Lenormand

Hi Tag

As most here know, we have had a license from the British Museum following our payment for the original photography, to reproduce this deck. We have recently extended that license to another 250 copies. We also had Ciro Marchetti work extensively on the images to align them into bordered versions. Your images appear - and we would obviously like to check this - to be those as produced by ourselves from Ciro's work.

Can you kindly send us a copy or put us in contact with the digital artist who modified your version of the British Museum originals, so we can check the status of your reproduction?

We are also talking with the sales team at the British Museum to clarify the license status.

ETA: The British Museum have informed us that the person involved in selling this deck is only licensed for "personal use" only and in the US, not for global commercial sales.

Please contact me via PM here in the first instance.

Tali Goodwin
Marketing Director, Tarot Professionals Ltd
 

Tag_jorrit

deleted to include Talitarot's quote in my reply.
 

Tag_jorrit

Hi Tag

As most here know, we have had a license from the British Museum following our payment for the original photography, to reproduce this deck. We have recently extended that license to another 250 copies. We also had Ciro Marchetti work extensively on the images to align them into bordered versions. Your images appear - and we would obviously like to check this - to be those as produced by ourselves from Ciro's work.

Can you kindly send us a copy or put us in contact with the digital artist who modified your version of the British Museum originals, so we can check the status of your reproduction?

We are also talking with the sales team at the British Museum to clarify the license status.

ETA: The British Museum have informed us that the person involved in selling this deck is only licensed for "personal use" only and in the US, not for global commercial sales.

Please contact me via PM here in the first instance.

Tali Goodwin
Marketing Director, Tarot Professionals Ltd

I don't expect a public apology for your and Mr. Katz's slanderous accusations based on erroneous or incomplete information from the British Museum that he distorted. I do, however, think that the people who saw those accusations and formed an opinion of me and my work based on those accusations deserve to know the facts. I cannot let your and his words go unchallenged.

Therefore, I will not take this to a private message and plan post copies of all the pertinent, factual information to back pages of my website www.gameofhopelenormand.com so that any late comers will not have to rely on conjecture and innuendo. His words, your words, my words and those of the British Museum.

First, congratulations on extending your license to use the image from the British Museum for further production of your cards. However, Marcus Katz and the Tarot Professionals erroneously concluded that they had exclusive rights to the image provided to them by the British Museum. They do not. I will post a copy of what the British Museum sent to me, addressing this issue, on my website in the context in which it was received.

Mr. Katz suggested in an email to me that I should provide him with a copy of my license from the British Museum. My business is with the British Museum and I have no obligation to prove anything to Mr. Katz. If the British Museum feels the need to furnish him with proof, that is up to the British Museum.

Second. He suggested in the email and in a very public post on Facebook, and as you echo here, that I copied the work of Ciro Marchetti.

Until my retirement I was a well-paid corporate graphic artist and videographer. I worked with digital imaging from 1989 until my retirement, beginning with Adobe Photoshop 1.0. As any digital artist can confirm, it is not difficult to manipulate digital images with any number of digital image editors currently on the market today. I am a skilled digital artist and have no need to use Mr. Marchetti's work, and think I did a superior job to the work he did for you. My opinion is obviously subjective. My work speaks for itself.

I have a license to use the image provided to me by the British Museum and to produce decks from that image. I paid for the rights to sell them. And I have copied no one's work.
 

gregory

I would suggest someone forward this thread to the British Museum for their comment. It would be good to hear their take.

I own a copy of the Game of Hope as produced by Tarotprofessionals, and this one does look startlingly similar.

That is all I am saying - startlingly similar.
 

nicky

well it should it is the same deck -

I think once it is actually in someone's hands perhaps they can see the differences.

N
 

gregory

well it should it is the same deck -

I think once it is actually in someone's hands perhaps they can see the differences.

N

Ciro modified it (cleaned and aligned the images) some. I have no idea which is which - that's why I'd like to hear from the BM - as only they can tell us for certain sure whether there is or is not an issue.
 

cirom

Tag-jorrit sounds quite confident in her legal position. Not to mention her confidence in her own superior abilities. So I can only assume she in the legal right. And there was some misunderstanding regarding the exclusivity or lack thereof of BMs licensing terms. However why someone would go to the effort of duplicating the production a of deck including the modifications involved, so closely and within such a short period and knowing that those who produced the first version were also planning a second production is baffling.
 

TaliTarot

Game of Hope License

Hello

To clarify, we were never under the impression that we had an exclusive license, as the British Museum do not issue these as part of their educational remit. However, when we spoke to our contact at the museum, she told us that they had not issued a commercial/worldwide license to anyone else, and were writing to the seller of this reproduction to ask why they were selling a copy marked "with permission". Those are the facts as we understand them.

With regard to the design work, the images we have seen appear to be exactly the same design as Ciro's outstanding work on the cards for us, which are not at all how they appear in the original photography. So again, we requested a copy of the deck for that reason.

Tali
 

auntie

exclusivity

Hi Tali,
I have to say that I personally feel mislead by your saying you were never under the impression that you had an exclusive license. My impression, as a customer who bought several copies of the deck, was that you did have, and that is one of the reasons I did buy your decks. Of course my impression may be mistaken, but I just googled "original lenormand exclusive" and found the wording in various places, but clearly put in the pdf of your LWB: "The cards themselves have been licensed exclusively to Tarot Professionals for publication as a deck, “The Original Lenormand” in a limited edition of 250 copies. These will be published June‐July 2012." And it's echoed in many of the reviews. I understand if you were mistaken, or if, perhaps, you were using the term loosely or incorrectly, but then I still feel, as a customer, that you should take responsibility for that before trying to malign another vendor who clearly may have paid for a license from the BM. I do also understand that when you called to check with the BM on her license, you may have been misinformed. However, to accuse her of using Ciro's work before simply putting one of her decks side by side with yours, when it seems to me that you've already clearly been mistaken or misinformed as to exclusivity, seems especially unfairly presumptuous.

I don't know this vendor personally, and have no reason to speak up for her, but she's an ebay vendor from whom I bought an unrelated used deck that arrived promptly, and while I've not ordered one of her new decks yet, I corresponded with her to ask whether she had a license and why she's produced another version of the Game of Hope deck and she responded to my satisfaction. I didn't ask for her to show me her license, of course, but I have no reason not to believe she has one.

Regards,
auntie