This is something that ought to be challenged. Where are our tarot activists? This is exactly why we need more powerful, cohesive organizations within the community.
Why? What does it get us if the Big Bad Ol' USG holds onto the copyright for a few more years? Or forever and a day? The deck is still out there at reasonable cost to anyone.
'Tarot Activists'? What - a Tarot Swat Team to break into Stu Kaplan's office and hold the Board of Directors hostage?
I daresay that if USG
HAD NOT gotten the copyright for it that there probably would be no RWS deck available for the public.
I don't see why everyone is so friggin' RABID about USG and the copyright on the RWS.
My best 'example' - "Fiddler on the Roof" was produced in 1964 - 49 years ago. If you were to produce it right now for your theatre group, you will be required BY LAW and contract to put on your program first page that the original production (49 years ago) was written by so-and-so based on stories by Sholom Aleichem, Produced by Harold Prince, and directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Although Prince is still alive (I think), everyone else is long dead. Why do you have to put the names of dead people on your program 49 years later? Because someone's lawyer created a contract with the royalty house, and if you don't include that information (which has a type size requirement) you will be fined for breaking your contract.
It's like saying "The Mona Lisa ia 400 years old - DiVinci is dead, so the image belongs to the public." Yeah. Right.
), a recent RWS copy/reproduction has been issued without the U.S Games copyright (The Game of Shadows Tarot named after the Sherlock Holmes movie for which it formed a part of the promotional material). I find this fact interesting and wonder whether it has been contested at all. 