I find this discussion very interesting.
Personnaly, I would not be comfortable with the copyright aspects - though I am by no mean a specialist on the subject of copyright.
If the artist gave permission, that would be totally different ! Then I would do it without thinking twice.
I have heard several tarot artists say that they refrain from putting images of their deck online, for fear of piracy, and I totaly understand them.
I have encountered an obviously pirated deck for sale on the internet once : a first edition Wild Unknown from a seller in Ukraine, not very expensive.
I had the second edition at the time, and wanted the first because I liked a few of the images better, but the first was becoming hard to get.
When I found this Ukraine seller, I thought I was being lucky and bought the deck ; but when it arrived and I compared it with my second edition (genuine this one) I saw how obvious it was that this "first edition" was pirated. Small tuckbox, smaller cards, thinner cardstock, and several cards severely misprinted.
I complained to the seller about the misprinted cards and they sent me another deck, better done, larger cards, better quality print, but still a copied deck (obvious from the box and the cardstock) and soon after that they disapeared from internet (of course !). The fact that I suspect the deck was pirated put me severely off of it. Its feels like stolen good for me.
I have since bought a genuine version of the WU 1st edition from another seller (actually two decks, but that is another story)
If I were the artist of this deck, this sort of robbery would enrage me !
But I can see why someone would wonder about doing it for their personal use with an OOP deck.
We are all aware that copying a moovie out of a streaming site on internet is definitively copyright infrigment.
But, if the moovie is impossible to find, very old and rare, has not been released on dvd, and is never broadcasted by tv chanels.... and a faraway friend has a copy of the moovie and offers to make a copy for you, just for your personal enjoyment, not for selling of making money from ?
Well, I would accept the copy of the moovie, and I would be grateful to the friend.
I sense that a very difficult to find OOP deck would trigger the same reaction, wouldn't it ?
I am not saying I find it justified to do it, I am merely saying I would be tempted and I understand someone who is tempted.
On a very practical side, I fear that finding all 78 images on the net to work with would be challenging (it seems to me that when you search Google image for a deck, you often find the majors plus the same 5 or 10 samples for the minors, but rarely all cards. It makes total sense from an artist point of view to try to avoid exposing all cards of their decks online)
And, it would be very costly to print it at home (one should have a printing machine that would accept to be fed decent cardstock, and the amount of ink needed would make the process quite expensive)
I have myself scanned all the cards of a deck I own : the Tarot of Trees.
The reason I did that is because the cardstock of the deck is so bad, that I would really like to have the same images on better cardstock. So, I scanned my cards, thinking that at one point I will maybe print them myself on better cardstock, and cut the cards one by one with a pair of cissors and a corner-rounder.
When I scanned the cards, I gave a lot of thoughts to copyright, and decided that as I have bought the deck from the artist in the first place, and as I would only use such a copy for myself and never give professional readings with it, it would be ok. Also I was a little pissed off by the bad cardstock on the copy I bought.
As I said earlier, I am absolutely not an expert on copyright laws - I just give the feelings my concience gives me here - I am not pretending to be right.
In France, for a start, while copying something for your personal use is not an excuse, it seems however that you can make photocopies of a book for your personal use, if you also own a genuine copy of the book (music schools are often searched for illegal photocopies, and the agents search the students bags. If you have photocopies and can prove you own a copy of the original score, or have ordered it from the store prior to the search and have not received it yet, you are ok. If you do not own the original, the fine is enormous. Often, for exams, the program is anounced 4 weeks in advance, and students order the scores form the net, and start working on photocopies from the library while waiting for their copy to arrive - keeping with them the receipt of their order in case of a search)
Anyway, I have not printed my Tarot of the Trees scans yet, first because my printing machine will only accept thin "office quality" paper, and because color ink is so expensive.... so first I would have to buy stocks of ink, then find someone with a very good printing machine that I could use.... well, the whole process is a lot of fuss.
For the moment the scans I made from the cards, are sleeping in a file on my husband's PC, and it goes without saying that I will NEVER give them and even less sell them.
I would much prefer if the artist made an other edition of this Tarot of Trees on better cardstock ; then I will prefer to buy this new edition from her rather than print my scans, no questions on that (easier and probably cheaper in the end)
, I noticed that for a while a few years ago it said Sold Out, but in late 2014 it was back in stock again at $20. So maybe...
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