CopyRight Question

Hello,

I notice that there are Marseille's Deck's from several publishers. For my website, I would like to use some of the designs of the cards. However, I can't find ANYWHERE if this art is copyrighted or not?

Can somebody help me out? I don't want to get into trouble or use art without permission.

Kahlie

Hi Kahlie,

Kahlie said:

Hello,

I notice that there are Marseille's Deck's from several publishers. For my website, I would like to use some of the designs of the cards. However, I can't find ANYWHERE if this art is copyrighted or not?

Can somebody help me out? I don't want to get into trouble or use art without permission.

Kahlie

Click to expand...

I think you should use the art you want, and if a copyright owner does notice it and wants you to stop, they will write you.

Nobody will sue you unless you are making a lot of money or have slandered them or seriously misused the art (such as to promote racist or other extremist ideas, or used it in pornography). I sense you are not going to do any of that, so I would recommend using them as you see fit, and probably no potential copyright owner will ever even know, or if they do, care.

It could even be seen as promotion, as long as you put the name and publisher of the deck you got the images from - and a link to a site where you can buy it!

Ross G Caldwell said:

Hi Kahlie,

I think you should use the art you want, and if a copyright owner does notice it and wants you to stop, they will write you.

Nobody will sue you unless you are making a lot of money or have slandered them or seriously misused the art (such as to promote racist or other extremist ideas, or used it in pornography). I sense you are not going to do any of that, so I would recommend using them as you see fit, and probably no potential copyright owner will ever even know, or if they do, care.

It could even be seen as promotion, as long as you put the name and publisher of the deck you got the images from - and a link to a site where you can buy it!

Click to expand...

I'm against this. Ask first. Why? It's polite, it's honest, and it's what you should do. I want to have my website be honest, just like I am. It reflects my ethics as a person. I e-mailed somebody for their image and they have been kind enough to give me permission.

I'm seeing that a lot of old decks apparently are free of copyright.
Why? Because after an authors death or the work has been out there for 70 years, it's apparently up in the free domain.

Now I just have to find some old decks that have beautiful suit pictures, and I can cut and use them.

Sadly the Thoth isn't public domain, else I would use that. I really adore the art of it. Rider-Waite is allowed for dutch law, but American law and international law is usually 100 years. So then it's not free yet for several years.

Anybody know any beautiful decks with nice looking suit pictures?

Kahlie

Well the original old decks might be free of copyright, but not the photoreproductions of them (someone took the picture), and certainly not the reworked modern ancient decks (if this makes sense - I mean modern versions of ancient decks), which are all in copyright.

If you absolutely want to ask permission you ought to write politely to the copyright owners of the old deck photoreproductions or the modern old decks reproducers and ask for permission to publish on your site.

Best do it in French, if you intend to put a TdM on your site.

Alternatively use Ross's advice, which is good and - in my opinion - not particularly unethical, particularly as far as the photoreproductions are concerned. These are cards in the French National Library.

With the modern reproductions - I doubt Grimaud or the estate of Paul Marteau will mind; Hadar and Camoin-Jodorowski might; Rodes-Sanchez too. Hadar and Rodes-Sanchez are nice people, so if you write to them (respectively in French and Spanish) they might well give you permission as long as you linked their site.

Hi, Kahlie

Why don't you ask "kenji" the At member for the permission to use the images of his "kenji-Conver"? Last year he got the genuine 19th century Conver and uploaded all the images of cards in his website (Yahoo so-and-so, perhaps?).

I forget the URL of his Conver images. Anyway he haunts here often enough to find this post and react with relevant generosity, which is his admirable characteristics!

I'd use them and credit the deck and publisher if known, with a link if possible.

robert

Just for the record, using material protected by copyright with a credit and link does not protect you against a cease and desist order or other legal action. This is a common misconception. The fact of the matter is, if it is protected under copyright you must obtain permission from the copyright holder. This is not always the artist or author. Very often it is the publisher who is the primary holder and that is who you would need to contact to keep things all above board.

Bev

Thanks Everybody for replying.

I used a part of a Heraclio Fournier Spanish Playing Card. Since the Cards say 1868 I'm sure it's already out in the public domain. I assumed that Playing Cards are usually out in the public domain too.

If any of you think I'm mistaken, please let me know. Since I doubt the cards that you can buy of these are photoproductions I'm around 99% sure I'm in the safe zone.

Kahlie

Fair Use Act

This will be of help to you, actually it will do us all some good.

This is a copy of the fair use act, that I can copy some material for website
Fair use or fair practice is utilization of a portion of a copyrighted work "as is" for purposes of parody, news reporting, research and education about such copyrighted work without the permission of the author.

Use of copyrighted works, or portions thereof, for any other purpose is not deemed fair use, so be careful! That includes copying text or scanning pictures from postcards, magazines, books or any other work. Scanning a photo of the Amazon Forest printed in National Geographic and using it without permission on your personal web site about your family trip to South America will most likely not be considered as fair use. However, if you republished the photo on your site to comment on the photo as it was published in National Geographic, this would most likely be considered fair use. You still have to credit your source by naming the author of the work on the same page. In any event, it is always safer to take the time and effort to contact the owner and request permission to use the owner's work, and more likely than not the owner will be very appreciative and give you a favorable response.

Many think that one may take someone else's work, whether it be writings, graphic images, midis and the like and use it in an "educational" work without obtaining the author's permission or giving credit because it is "fair use". When you wrote a term paper in school, didn't you credit your sources? Even if you paraphrased the author's original words, or if you feel that you don't need the author's permission because it falls in this vague concept of fair use you must credit your source's hard work by naming your source as a reference. This is a requirement under copyright legislation. If not, you'd be committing plagiarism.

Fair Use Act doesn't apply for me, but thanks for posting it.
I'm using a part of a suit card to add to my banner of my website. As such, the Fair Use Act doesn't apply. So I'm going by the normal copyrighted rules of having it in the public domain (free to use) after it's been out there for 100 years.

Kahlie