copyright infringments??

[Glyphman]

I am not sure when I would be crossing the line or not.

Sometimes I find complete paragraphs within a book that I could not have said better, and would like to use it in the book that accompanies my deck.

Also, where graphics are concerned. Here is an image that may find a place on a card. This particular image is part of someones existing logo.
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...hinwindow2.gif

Or something like this that was copied from a book.
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3.../mixtecguy.gif

Where do we draw the line? Or to what degree can an image be altered either in color or whatever that would take me out of the gray area and make it usable without worring about copyrights?

[blackroseivy]

As far as text goes, you HAVE to say things in your own way. It's ok to get ideas from other sources, but the words MUST be your own or you are asking for trouble.

I'm afraid that the same goes for your visuals. If it's not original, it's not useable. Period.

[Zwendel]

I don't know much about copyright in the rest of the world, but if I'm not mistaking you are crossing the line twice as far as the visuals are concerned with our copyright system.

I don't know how to translate this, so I'll try to explain. The creator of the artwork retains the rights on deciding how his art is used/shown or altered. It's called something like the paternal rights. I think he even keeps those after he sells his work. So recoloring a copyright protected work is not done.

Secondly, more obvious: you cannot publish something that isn't yours unless you buy the rights.

[baba-prague]

If you search this part of the forum (I mean Tarot Deck Creation ) using the search term "copyright" you'll find lots of information, including links to the US copyright office and several previous references to a good outlline of copyright law for collage artists that Sarah Ovenall has on her site:
http://www.funnystrange.com/copyright/index.html

Basically, as I understand it (but I am not a lawyer!) it is usually fine to use some credited quotes from books (i.e you need to make it clear that they ARE quotes - they can't be passed off as original work) under the "fair use" law - but there is a limit on the amount you can use - you'd have to look up the details of that. Fair use law is a bit complicated - take a look at Sarah's explanation of it here:
http://www.funnystrange.com/copyright/fairuse.htm
You'll need to read the whole thing as she talks about "fair use" of images as well as text - very useful stuff.

Scanning images from books? Usually fine if the book was published and printed before 1910 (i.e. not a recent reprint) and is now definitely out of copyright - many publications up to 1923 are also now out of copyright. Again, you'll find all details of this if you follow the links that have been posted here previously.

[Purple Myst]

I did an intellectual property law course at uni, and from what I can remember, this is asking for trouble. If you use another persons work, make sure you give credit to that person in your book. The same goes for using images. Altering the images would be a no-no, even if you alter almost everything you have to give credit.

Intellectual property is a gray area in general and crossing the line is very easy. If you don't want to risk copyright violation, I would just use as much of your own work as possible, and where you can't, make sure you give credit.

For more information on these topics you can consult WIPO, which has a lot of information on all kinds of intellectual property law: http://www.wipo.int/portal/index.html.en

[Glyphman]

Just wanted to say thanks for the info.........Big help