If you keep a Tarot blog, could you pop in here...

In regards to copyright I believe it's better to be safe than sorry.
When I was thinking of starting a Tarot blog I went around and asked permission from some publishing houses and they were ok with it as long as it was for educational or non-profit use. They will give you a little script to write under each picture or as a watermark and an email saying it's ok. That's gold so make sure you keep it!
It wasn't as scary as it sounds, and they were very nice.
...
But in the end I was too lazy and not creative enough to keep it up. Lol

It's also really easy to contact publishers and ask for permission. Most I contacted about my blog were really happy to give permission, and some even gave me links to scans to use.

It is also legal to take a photo of the cards you read with - i.e. photograph the spread - and post those. I'm not saying I agree with it 100% but apparently if you take the photograph it is then considered to be your intellectual property, even if you are taking a photo of someone else's work. At least that way the owner can't complain about people being able to reconstitute decks from high-quality scans! I personally feel it's a nice compromise, even though it's never going to be as sharp as scans.

...And to be honest you can get a more personal sort of vibe when you take a photo; assuming of course everything is in focus and not catching a reflection, etc. But hints of spreadcloths or doodads in your reading space can be interesting for the reader as well.

I use wordpress. They're great.

edit to add: I include at the bottom of each post the publishing details of the card used. I also have a section titled 'Decks' where this is all gathered together, and where I link to all posts about each deck. I also include links to the seller's page (if they are an independent publisher), which I think pretty much covers things.

Assuming that you want to review the decks, there is a doctrine called "fair use" that you should google. Basically you can reproduce a reasonable number of cards in the course of reviewing them. As others have said, posting a whole deckful or very high-res scans would be asking for trouble.

Your local library can undoubtedly supply one or more good books on copyright... Nolo Press (which my iPad helpfully autocorrected to "Bolo Press," haha) has good info, understandable by the average non-attorney.

(I guess I should be glad it didn't suggest "YOLO Press"...!)

I have 2 wordpress blogs.
none of them paid or anything . I picked a theme and then changed the pictures/ color sheme to put in my own. I too do not like their fonds and only use it when I re-post something interesting for my readers, that I found on the net. Otherwise I write on my poooooter in "open office, pick the fond and the colour I like it to be in and then copy/ paste the whole thing into wordpress.
It works fine. I wish I could leave you an url, but that is against the rules here. However, check my profile and you will find my shaman blog......

Belinda said:

Know that there is a difference between wordpress.com and .org. I set up a wordpress.com blog at first thinking I'd try something new but I do not like the restrictions on it and that you can only choose from a few themes, all the really cool ones either have to be paid for or are free on the .org version which will require purchase of the domain since its self hosted. For the free templates on .com you will not be able to alter the color scheme (unless you pay) or even change the font (unless you pay) which seems small but I'm an artsy person so I just like having that kind of control.

So now I have 2 sites for the same blog concept, I'm going to keep fiddling with both and then choose once they are both built up a little bit more but I am really leaning back towards Blogger.

Click to expand...

happyfish said:

I use Wordpress. It's pretty intuitive and easy to use.

As for images, in the US the ORIGINAL Rider Waite images are in the public domain - but anything that has been recolored, reissued, etc is still under copyright. It also seems that even the original 1909 RWS is not public domain in many other countries, because there are different laws all over the place. Yeah, image copyright is a hairy beast of an issue.

At any rate, I use the images from the original 1909 deck on my site (you can find them on Wikipedia).

If you're using decks from US Games, here are the 'official' guidelines. http://www.usgamesinc.com/info/TarotReproductionPolicies.pdf

Okay, the rest of what I'm about to say is purely my opinion and observations. I don't think deck publishers give two hoots about people posting images of cards on their blogs in most cases. The only way I think they'd ever really go after anyone is if you have very clear, detailed scans of cards - scans that were so good that people could easily print them instead of buying the deck. Many people - myself included - snap bazillions of pictures of our daily draws and post them to Instagram. I don't think this is a concern to deck publishers because the picture quality would not allow anyone to rip the images off to create a makeshift deck, if you see what I'm saying. But of course, this last paragraph is just my two cents, the earlier stuff is the official word of the law.

ETA: If you are still really concerned with copyright stuff, I'd also suggest looking into using images from an indie deck. For example, I got permission from Seven Stars to use images from her Deck of the Bastard on my site. Much simpler than dealing with a corporation.

Click to expand...

Very helpful to know about the RWS and US public domain, thanks--and I just started with wordpress, which is sort of intuitive and sort of not-intuitive for me, so it is in limbo right now while I work on chunks here and there on the basic structure: somehow the gravatar function is dicey with my Mozilla Firefox and addons, but I have gotten past that--still no photo icon though! They do have many links to tutorials etc. right on the site, which I find of use. Good luck, and thanks to OP for the question--it's a useful subject to me and seemingly to others.

1. Posting pics of Tarot cards- Is this okay?
It depends. I think that the general consensus is that you can't post scans (at least, any that haven't been made available by the publisher) or that you can post pictures of Tarot cards as long as it isn't the card itself. In the latter case, you could post something like a book with the card on top of it but not a picture that showed only the card (since that could lead to people printing it out). If you add links to places where people can buy the deck or to the publisher or author's website also seems like a good idea.

If in doubt, it's pretty easy to e-mail them and ask. Most Tarot publishers I can think of aren't huge companies, so it's likely that they would get back to you relatively quickly and even like the idea of getting more promotion for their work.

2. Anyone want to recommend what they use- Blogger, Word Press, etc?

Blogger is more intuitive to use and has more features in terms of customising your blog.

Wordpress, unless you have a paid account, gives you less control over your site's layout, but it's a very good option if you know how to use blogs (and especially if you're willing to get a paid account or host the software yourself).

You also have journal sites like LiveJournal or Dreamwidth. They aren't the most traditional blogging choices, but they're also relatively easy to use.

Also, I think I know what you're talking about when you mention blogs that require visitors to sign in and I think you got the wrong idea. Most of the major blogging platforms have privacy settings that people can adjust, so that they can make a blog visible only to themselves or to selected individuals. The blogs you visited were probably using a privacy feature like that. Since you mention "gmail", I assume you're talking about Blogger but I can assure you that Blogger lets blogs be public by default, unless you change that setting (it's also not "gmail", it's "Google Accounts". You can sign up for a Google Account with a gmail e-mail, though this won't make you able to view those blogs if you don't have the permission to do so). I hope that clears things up.

I can't believe that any copyright holder would object to having one of their cards shown on a tarot website. The internet is full of Tarot card images, and all of the sites that feature or review decks necessarily display some of the cards. How else could someone's deck be properly promoted?

I think there's only two things to consider:

1. Credit where credit is due. As long as you're not passing off someone else's work as your own, you are covered by the Fair Use act.

2. As long as it's web quality - 72dpi and website size, then you're clearly not trying to make it available for piracy. You're just showcasing someone's cards, much the same as if you photographed a car for a car blog, or screenshots of a computer game on a games review site.

The suggestion that a deck owner.distributor or creator would sue you for showing a credited copy of one of their cards on a tarot blog is ludicrous. They'd have to sue the rest of the internet first

As for blogs, I use wordpress and find it powerful as well as easy