Is This Legal?

gregory

moderndayruth said:
I contacted the US Games meanwhile, i drew their attention to this thread. Could someone call them from US?
"Your message has been sent to the designated department. Unless you chose to leave feedback you can expect to hear back from us within 2 business days. If this is an urgent matter, please call us between 9am - 5pm EST at 1-800-544-2637 or (203) 353-8400. "
I sent directly to an e-mail I happen to have for someone there....

KK - baba answers her e-mails..... ;)
 

firecatpickles

gregory said:
I sent directly to an e-mail I happen to have for someone there....

KK - baba answers her e-mails..... ;)


Thank you for contacting her ;)
 

moderndayruth

Greg, i don't know how much can be done, but de jure it is illegal in the framework of Russian Federation's legal system.
Russian Federation, decree no. 1224/1994
(Governmental decree no. 1224 from 1994, signed by Viktor Chernomyrdin, about the accession of Russia to three international copyright treaties. )
Here is the text of the law in Russian (couldn't find in in English):
http://www.copyrighter.ru/full/index.html?berne4.htm
The "Russian reservation concerning the Berne Convention" includes (only) certain pre-1973 foreign works still commonly considered to be uncopyrighted in Russia.
gregory said:
I sent directly to an e-mail I happen to have for someone there....
Yay! :D
 

thorhammer

I received an unsolicited email advertising this ?product? through another forum (I forget which, I'm overtired) and was quite . . . stroppy. I will be notifying the administrator of said forum about it today.

I found the advertisement confusing and entirely unhelpful, but got the gist of illegality from it.

Good on you guys.

\m/ Kat
 

cirom

I have been in direct correspondence with the person behind this product.
Between comments of defense, i.e. "Its not just me, lots of sites offer tarot images" etc etc. A slight use of profanity, and some machismo, You can't threaten me I'll just move my server, to somewhere inside Russia etc etc. But he also sounded like he got the message and had had enough If he received a list of the "copyrighted" decks he would remove them.
This is part of the last communication where I tried to also reach a more
conciliatory tone.

e-mail

Me------Thank you for your response.

I was'nt trying to F with your brains as you politely describe it.

Him -----It's just in consequence of the language barrier...
English language is very limited by itself.

Me -----And yes, you are right, of course you can run to the safety of
the Russian system to avoid any direct legal repercussions. But the
"enough people" as we described them, are your potential customers are
they not ? Its not good business wether here or Russia to annoy
customers.

Anyway the points have been made and my apologies if I misunderstood
the detailed difference between the decks being on the CD or web site
etc.

Your offer to remove the copyrighted material wherever it is, is all
that was requested. So thank you for offering to do that.

The irony of all this is that if people like you were to actually
contact people like me in the first place, we might actually have done
legitimate business together. Your product seems good. Well done for
that at least. And no, I'm not F ing with your brain.

Him-------I'm still waiting for the List

end



I don't have the full list of decks or know which number of them would be the copyright ones, but I recommend someone that does might simply provide it, and that we should then possibly back off. Hopefully between us and our various communications we have achieved our objective. In which case this has been a positive experience where our combined voice has proven to be an effective one.
 

moderndayruth

Congrats, Cirom! :thumbsup:
 

gregory

thorhammer said:
I received an unsolicited email advertising this ?product? through another forum (I forget which, I'm overtired) and was quite . . . stroppy. I will be notifying the administrator of said forum about it today.

I found the advertisement confusing and entirely unhelpful, but got the gist of illegality from it.
So did I. Orphalese ? S/he seems to be picking off everyone's address from there and mailing.....
 

gregory

cirom said:
I don't have the full list of decks or know which number of them would be the copyright ones, but I recommend someone that does might simply provide it, and that we should then possibly back off. Hopefully between us and our various communications we have achieved our objective. In which case this has been a positive experience where our combined voice has proven to be an effective one.
OK I will try and pull something together - certainly yours, baba's, USG,s Llewellyn's (that's yours !) and LS ones fit. I think that will cover almost all of the ones offered !!!!! Since you are getting somewhere, I will pass it to you later today. Cos I need to get into the site to get them all, and if I write, I'll get blocked too !
 

firecatpickles

It seems like this mofo is going to get what he deserves.

Good on all of ya... Hate seeing people taken advantage of.
 

Elven

I have been thinking over this for a while, and it was about something the person said - that he is one of hundreds if not thousands that are taking advantage of this unregulated and illegal situation. Tarot is big business - as a creative artist and as a professional reader - Tarot generates money, and if it didn't it wouldnt have escalated as it has over the years.

I wonder then how much money has been lost from the pocket of the creator of Tarot (and even Oracles) in illegal dealings from the internet?
I would estimate it would be considerable to some, and less to others, but still I think it would be calculable.
Over the course of 10 years it maybe the cost of producing another deck.

To give an example, there are 2 major industrys which are now aware of the cost from downloading copied material - one is the publishing industry (which recently has some of the major publishers putting their pubications on their own ebook sites) and the other is SAG - the Screen Actors Guild (threatening to strike over re-runs and DVD percentage rights). The redistribution of creative works without payment to the creator and/or copyright holder is out of control. Money is being lost, and it is vast enough sums for the big guns to take action.

Here at AT, someone gives the heads up about an illegally used deck (most related issues are copyright) and the amount of work which goes into contacting the creators and those who are vulnerable to this illegal activity is huge.

I am wondering then, when, how, or will there ever be something like an Alliance of Tarot Creators which, as a group, can confront any issues which come up as a copyright concern with the internet and pirated CD's?

Most of the decks I have seen being used or distributed illegally which infringe copyright basically come from a reasonably small pool of people and business'.
Would it not be better to voice your concerns as a collective instead of having to individually tackle each and every heads-up which comes to your attention?

As far as I can see, this is situation is getting worse, and without some form of semi-official warning, these pirates will keep doing this. This thread is a classic example of the sophisticated programming which allows this to take place. Though there is no sophistication about the person selling it ;)

Is it a cause worth considering?
Or is it all just too hard?

Just some thoughts
Cheers
Elven x