copyright free line art/drawings?

Royalty-free

I'm looking at "Royalty-free" photographs at myloupe.com.

Do these qualify as 'safe' for tarot cards?

Why are there still licensing fees if they're "royalty-free"?

I guess I'm confused.

"Royalty free" usually means that you don't have to pay per use. What you would be doing is buying the photo, which you would then be free to do what you like with, whether you are using it on an item printed once, or 100/1000 times (though usually you can't sell it on - you have to use it in a product or service, not resell it as a photo, if you see what I mean). Most of these sites have detailed terms and conditions which are worth reading through, as they do vary a bit.

Then there is always the "BOTA", of course - the Official Tarot Coloring-Book!

baba-prague said:

"Royalty free" usually means that you don't have to pay per use. What you would be doing is buying the photo, which you would then be free to do what you like with, whether you are using it on an item printed once, or 100/1000 times (though usually you can't sell it on - you have to use it in a product or service, not resell it as a photo, if you see what I mean). Most of these sites have detailed terms and conditions which are worth reading through, as they do vary a bit.

Click to expand...

The site I'm at now, they're charging an average $60 for the cheapest resolution! Are members here REALLY paying that much PER SHOT??

I do have some artistic ability...what if I saw a photo there, and drew up my OWN version of what I see? Would that work? (that's probably a dumb question, seeing as it'd be MY work, but I mean if I drew familiar commercial logos in my drawing?)

HighPriestesss said:

The site I'm at now, they're charging an average $60 for the cheapest resolution! Are members here REALLY paying that much PER SHOT??

I do have some artistic ability...what if I saw a photo there, and drew up my OWN version of what I see? Would that work? (that's probably a dumb question, seeing as it'd be MY work, but I mean if I drew familiar commercial logos in my drawing?)

Click to expand...

Well, to be honest I would stay WELL away from commercial logos, especially well-known ones - companies who own them are very liable to write you a "cease and desist". Years ago I worked for a very large international Telco in the design dept, and a less fun part of our job was sending out letters to anyone who used the logo without permission - redrawn or not. Companies don't do it to be mean, but because if they don't take action on all trivial non-permitted usages, it can make it impossible to take action later if they have to (long story, but courts can say that you have lost your rights by default if you ignore some instances of the logo being used). So companies are sort of forced to protest against anything like this, whether it seems silly or not. I used to really find it awful sometimes, but I did understand that legally we had to send out letters and even polite threats.

I think other than that you'd be okay with your own drawings - but I am no copyright lawyer of course and other people here may have different opinions.

HighPriestesss said:

The site I'm at now, they're charging an average $60 for the cheapest resolution! Are members here REALLY paying that much PER SHOT??

Click to expand...

I have no idea. We take the vast majority of our own photos - or use old out-of-copyright studio pictures, and pictures from antique books - and only source from libraries for a few details that we can't find otherwise (the Victorian brass syringe in the Bohemian Gothic Devil card is from a library shot that we bought - it was just an impossible item to track down in reality). I don't know what other people do. Maybe some will chime in?

Dover Publications actually gave me permission to use clip-art from their series in a Tarot project that I'M interested in doing. The lady was very nice.

blackroseivy said:

Dover Publications actually gave me permission to use clip-art from their series in a Tarot project that I'M interested in doing. The lady was very nice.

Click to expand...

Everything I try to do a search on there just gives me a page of links.

What am I doing wrong?

Try a search here, I know there was a site listed that had the whole RWS deck and maybe a TdM that you could copy and print to make your own deck. I'll look in my bookmarks and see if I can find it.

HighPriestesss said:

Everything I try to do a search on there just gives me a page of links.

What am I doing wrong?

Click to expand...

Have you tried http://www.pdphoto.org/ ? It's a site where photographers have offered some of their work to the public domain. Not all of the photos are copyright free, so you need to check the statements about them by the artists. There's some great work there. But they do ask that you give them credit and a link back, and I seem to recall the site welcomes donations. I don't know the people who run it but I have used one of the photos on my blog, and was very grateful for it. They have provided some of them to Wikipedia too. As always read the fine print. Good luck!