This thread is ... bizarre.
There is an ocean of difference between stealing an idea and actually genuinely thinking of an idea on your own and being diligent enough to copyright it. Do you see what I mean?
You don't think two people in the whole world can think of identical ideas on their own? They could be oceans apart, in different worlds and have never met and believe that what they have created is "theirs" to copyright? You don't think that's possible? You don't think that the entire body and scope of intellectual property rights law isn't largely influenced by this happening?
Now apply that to someone who creates a tarot spread (we're not talking about a book) but a tarot spread in the age of the internet. You don't think two or more people from completely different locations in the world who can look at all the great tarot resources on the internet and its never possible that those people could possibly have a same or similar idea for a tarot spread?
This very thread has proven my point. LOL. This person who is being lambasted WRONGLY, has already come in here, explained their position. It's real life proof of what I'm talking about.
My goodness, this thread is very strange.
I understand the importance of protecting ideas, know how etc. As a lawyer that fights over IP rights in contracts EVERY SINGLE DAY, I fully understand its value and its importance. I just don't think people are looking at this rationally here.
Thank you, Kgirl.
So if acknowledgment is to be given, then shouldn't mkg have given acknowledgment to the person who had previously done that spread of hers? Acknowledgment is fine and polite, but it's a well-known fact that ideas that are pretty much identical hit thousands, and even maybe millions of people at a time.
It's said that there's not an original plot left in books and stories. That there are something like 35 different plots and the rest is variations on the same theme. I believe it's the same with thoughts and ideas---there's not an original thought that only one person in entire world has. There may be millions of others. But the reason an idea is seen as being original is that one person becomes more well-known for taking the same idea and actually doing something with it.
I just pick my battles. I reason it this way if I stop to think of it and take it apart. Say I've made a Tarot spread I find works well and I share it. Now, someone else takes the spread and does something a little more creative with it, like adding a Halloween graphic to it and puts it on a website. On my own part, I'd just smile and think that was cute and go on with life. But say I was irritated and precious about it----would I take it so far as to make a big issue of it? No---I have a life to live where terminal illnesses in the family have helped me to get my priorities straight and on a scale of 1 to 10, my concern with that Tarot spread would rank about a minus 5. For that reason, I just don't understand the big to-do about this. And especially since the person who used it showed up and set the matter straight, removed the spread, and that should be that.
As I said before, anyone who sees me post a spread of my own making is free to have it. Use it, publish it, do whatever you will. You have my permission. Be aware, though, that I'm not so clever as to think that nobody else will have ever had the same thought about making a spread, so be aware someone might jump out of the woodwork to claim it. I don't think anyone else has used it that I know of, but I know the likelihood is high that some people have done the same thing. I'm thinking of the one I call a Sacred Seven, to be specific, but again--use it if you want to. It works well for me.