How does this deck avoid copyright/TM issues?

[Eric Lee]

I just saw this on my KS page: The Solaris Tarot.
She freely admits that it's inspired by SW the final trilogy. I'm not trying to create any trouble for her or her project, but I'm surprised that Disney hasn't come to shut this down or demand royalties. It's also the 2nd ed as well.

Is it more that Disney doesn't know about it or is this a grey area where she's copying just enough that she can skirt the wrath of the Empire/Disney?

Interested to know how this work to avoid copyright and TM issues. (NOT to report her)

[macstrat]

TL;DR: There is no direct mention of Star Wars, or its trademarks directly as far as I can see. The work is completely artistic. We dont know that they dont have a license. Since the concept of tarot does not exist in the SW universe (as far as I know), and there is no context for the images, the work could be classified as parody or homage (slim chance, but there).


Copyright is a tricky issue. It all comes down to perception. Being inspired is different than actually infringing, and depending on the country, might not even be infringement at all. Due to the artistic nature of the work itself, it could be classified as an homage at best (see https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2019/05 ... th-homage/), since as far as I can see there is also no direct mention of SW or its characters by use of proper trademarks (Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren, etc). This is one of the reasons that movies will parody a name and then at the end of the film will say "all referenced to trademarks or people are purely coincidental," when you as the watcher know damn well they arent.

Here is an example from my own experience recently as an example:
I had scanned in one of JR's decks, and posted the card scans here to the thread about the deck. He replied that he was uncomfortable with this, as they are high resolution scans, and he does put a lot of time and effort into his decks. I replied that if he wanted to, I would take them down. I have no copyright, claim, or trademark on my scans. They are a derivative work, 100% on his deck. There is no "artistic input" on the scans themselves (unlike Solaris Tarot, which is a hand drawn interpretation). I identified them with the name of the deck, which he could, and might, claim copyright or trademark on. While we were able to resolve the issue, he had every right to call me out on it. If he wants to, he still has the right to ask me to take them down, or make them private. To contrast this: The Architectura Scala deck scans were recently removed from Flickr becasue the artist claimed IP infringement with a cease and desist letter. In both cases, I did not seek permission first, because the context of the scans is for digital preservation, which is covered under DMCA. But i'm not gonna be a dick about it.

With the above examples, I am not profiting from my scans, and do my best to make sure that other people cannot profit from them either. Art becomes a tricky subject if the person is profiting from it. We dont know if they have permission from the copyright holder to use the trademarks. They might. Depending on the property, licensing fees can amount to pennies of the total price of the deck. When I print museum replicas, the licensing fees I pay to the museums come out to about $.50 per print, and on an $80 print, thats nothing.

There are many legal loopholes that a deck like this can be made. Parody, homage, satire, new artistic expression, etc. are all ways a deck like this can be made without legal repercussion or infringement.

All that said and done, there is a lot we dont know. If all of this is kinda mind melting, its becasue it is.

[BaconWise]

To the best of my knowledge, I think the key word here is "homage", as macstrat said. I don't believe permission is required in the case of an homage. If there is going to be direct imagery or references from an IP, then the designer will have to get a license to use it, or face the consequences. Here are two quick examples I can think of for the difference between an homage and a direct license within the card community:

- Ascension (Volumes I and II) by Steve Minty. Both Ascension campaigns are considered an homage to Game of Thrones and Steve alludes to that fact in the campaign descriptions. While he was inspired by George R. R. Martin's creation and the ensuing HBO series, he doesn't use any specific character names, nor does he use anything but images he has created that fit into the general theme.

- Lord of the Rings by Jackson Robinson. This is an upcoming campaign, consisting of multiple decks in the Lord of the Rings world. While Jackson is creating his own illustrations of characters and iconic imagery, he is using specific character names and the deck will be called The Lord of the Rings. It's directly related and he has secured the licensing, which I am sure cost more than a tower of Lotrek Ambassadors.

I would love to see more directly licensed projects, but the fact of the matter is that it's expensive and deck projects are already slim on profits, if they even make any. We see a lot more homage decks that are hit or miss, because they can't rely on the support the name alone would give and they can't rely on the iconic imagery.

[Eric Lee]

Ah, thank you all. I was aware of the parody and fair use concepts, but didn't know about the homage concept. So that's how she can do it, even though the names are clear meshing of the characters, as admitted by the designer. "Knights of Reylo"

Well, if fanfic can be a thing which doesn't infringe on copyright, no problems with this as well in terms of fan art.

[macstrat]

Ah, thank you all. I was aware of the parody and fair use concepts, but didn't know about the homage concept. So that's how she can do it, even though the names are clear meshing of the characters, as admitted by the designer. "Knights of Reylo"

Well, if fanfic can be a thing which doesn't infringe on copyright, no problems with this as well in terms of fan art.

I had a friend that made EPIC paintings of the Star Trek Captains. Paramount sent him a C&D letter because they contained the starfleet logos and badges, which is trademarked. it really is a very fine line.

Perspective: This makes me legally worried for he deck creator becasue they are using images that are trademarked, and they directly reference the franchise.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ax ... ory_newest

[Eric Lee]

Ah, thank you all. I was aware of the parody and fair use concepts, but didn't know about the homage concept. So that's how she can do it, even though the names are clear meshing of the characters, as admitted by the designer. "Knights of Reylo"

Perspective: This makes me legally worried for he deck creator becasue they are using images that are trademarked, and they directly reference the franchise.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ax ... ory_newest

Looking at this project, it really is asking for C&D. At least Solaris redid the images and didn't use anything too close to the TM images like the rebellion or imperial logos.

The cited website had a great article on fan fic and fan art as well.
https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2010/05 ... copyright/