Copyright / Intellectual
Property Issues and Other Miscellaneous Topics
Topics:
Q:
What is the copyright status of the card images used on the Tarot
Garden website?
A: The card images displayed on our
website are copyrighted to their respective creators, artists, and
publishers. The Tarot Garden holds no copyright to any of these images,
unless otherwise noted. Subsequently, we cannot grant usage rights for
the images under any circumstances.
The inclusion of these images on our website is
done under the terms of "fair usage" laws, solely for informational
purposes, and to promote the creators'/publishers' own products. All
card images were scanned by us, unless otherwise noted. We have
deliberately limited the number of images provided from each deck, to
discourage reproduction of a deck in toto through illegal
means. In cases where we have received requests from publishers or
artists to remove or otherwise not post images of their work, we have
complied voluntarily and in full. We do not claim credit for the
creation or ownership of any of the images included in our database,
unless otherwise noted.
Q:
Under what conditions may others use the information and images from
your website and database?
A: Under no circumstances is
permission granted to reproduce text or images from our website without
our express written permission. Please note that while
the copyright for the tarot designs and images belong to the respective
artists, authors, publishers, etc., the particular scans and
descriptions in our database have been either been made by us, from
copies owned by the Tarot Garden, and in accordance with copyright law,
or have been received from and approved for inclusion on our website by
the appropriate authorized entities. Thus, the particular content of
our website is considered to be our Intellectual Property, and is
subject to the copyright laws pertaining thereto. We will aggressively
pursue any violations of our Intellectual Property rights, as we have
successfully done in the past.
Please note that these restrictions pertain
only to usage of the material in contexts outside of our own website.
It is perfectly acceptable to link directly to the website pages
themselves (i.e., any Tarot Garden webpage that includes an .html or
.php extension). Direct links to the images (i.e., files with a .jpg or
.gif extension) are not permitted, as this is considered outside the
boundaries of our website. For information on acceptable methods for
direct-linking to listings in our database, please refer to our
database FAQ topic entitled How can I link
to a specific listing in your database?
Please consult copyright laws for additional
information, or email us if
you have any questions about acceptable use.
Q:
I wrote or called for information but never received a reply -- why?
A: We try hard to personally answer
each-and-every email that we receive. However, over the past few years,
our website has become one of the premiere sources for tarot
information on the internet, but there's still only two of us here
running the show. So, there are times -- particularly when we're both
out-of-the office attending shows or seeing to other obligations --
when our response time is not as fast as we would like.
In general, we respond quickly to most messages
and calls. In fact, we've received a lot of feedback from customers
expressing surprise at how fast we've replied to their emails. And, in
general, our goal is not to let anything sit in our email "In Box" or
phone message box more than 72 hours. However, we don't promise a
72-hour response time, as occasionally we may be out of the office for
several days, and "catching up" after return is often a bit of a
challenge. Also, some of the more "unique" questsions we receive can
require a bit of research, and we generally don't reply to such
messages until we've determined the answer or confirmed that we won't
be able to answer the question.
You'll want to be aware, however, that there
have been many instances where we have responded to requests --
in some cases, several times -- and yet continue to receive messages
from customers inquiring why we haven't replied. We've found several
reasons that contribute to these kinds of situations:
-
Sometimes, our emails are simply not
"getting through." If you have spam filtering technology in your email
program, you may wish to verify that our messages aren't being
accidentally redirected to your "spam" folder.
-
There have also been a few instances that
no matter how carefully we double-check or how hard we try, our replies
to the email information we have simply "bounce back" to us without
being delivered. If you have not received an acknowledgement of your
request and need further information, you may also try calling us at
515.224.7654 (U.S. Central Time Zone).
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For inquiries by phone, there have been
some cases where the callback information left was so unclear or
garbled that we couldn't decipher enough information to return the
call.
-
Also, we've had some cases where folks
called and simply left the wrong callback number. When leaving
a phone message, please speak slowly and clearly, and make sure you're
concentrating on the information being provided when you leave the
number where we can reach you. We do return calls from outside the
U.S.; simply leave your phone number as you would give it to someone in
your own country; we have the list of international dialing codes
needed to get a connection to your region.
Q:
I tried phoning you, but I got a weird message about
"Privacy Plus." What is that?
A: Due to the large number of unwanted
solicitation calls we were receiving, we subscribed to the "Caller ID"
service in order to distinguish legitimate calls from our customers
from those folks who have no business contacting us. In general, the
Caller ID service has worked well (in fact, we actually may know who
you are before we pick up the phone, making it faster for us to process
your order), and should cause most callers no problems in reaching us.
However, there are two instances where the
Caller ID service is unable to determine the necessary information
about the caller:
-
When the caller is located in the U.S. or
Canada, but is calling from an office or building where the phones have
"extensions," and...
-
When the caller is calling from outside the
U.S. or Canada.
If your call falls into one of the above two
categories, the Caller ID system will (wrongly) assume that you have
subscribed to the "ID blocker" service, and therefore your call won't
"ring through" to us directly. Instead, you will be re-routed to a
screening service.
If you are re-routed, you can still reach us by
phone -- you just have to be patient. The system will ask you to state
your name. When you do, please also note that you are calling for the
Tarot Garden -- for example, "this is Maria Sanchez, and I'm calling
the Tarot Garden to place an order." After stating your name, the call
will "ring through" to us, and your recorded statement will be played.
As soon as we are able to determine that you are a legitimate caller,
we will answer the call. This process will take about 30 - 45 seconds.
If we are out of the office and not able to
answer your call, you will then be rerouted to our answering machine,
where you can leave a message so that we can call you back. This
machine is used for both business and personal messages, so please
don't be concerned if you hear Jeannette's kids on the recording,
saying you can leave a message for them, too. Be sure to speak slowly
and clearly, and provide your name, phone number, and your country or
time zone -- the latter so that we don't accidentally return your call
in the middle of your night!
Q:
What is your policy regarding the "sharing" of my personal information
with other companies or entities?
In a nutshell: we don't. We hate spam, and we
hate unsolicited phone calls (for more information on just how much
we hate them, see the section above entitled "I tried phoning you, but
I got a weird message about 'Privacy Plus.' What is that?"). And we're
pretty sure that you do, too. We're just interested in sharing
information about tarot, and hooking up tarot enthusiasts and
collectors with the decks that are right for them. As such, we do not
provide any of your personal information we
receive, no matter how we got ahold of it, to any other third
party for any reason -- period. If we're ever required to
provide your information to anyone else by incontrovertible law, then
yeah -- we'll do what the law requires. Otherwise, the "sharing" stops
here.
It's hard to say if this policy will change in
the future -- companies grow, and directorships change. But right now,
we've got no plans to change it, and if we ever did, you'd be informed
and allowed to "opt in" (not "opt out" -- you'd be assumed to be "out"
unless you specifically notified us that you wanted to be "in") to any
services or promotions which would require us to share your information
with anyone outside of the Tarot Garden company.
Q:
I'm looking for a
deck that... {has a card that looked like ----, was published in ---,
my friend bought a long time ago, etc., etc., etc.}...can you tell me
what it is and where I can find it?
With over 1,500 tarots and cartomantic decks
documented in our database (as of this writing -- 16 November 2005), we
get a lot of inquiries from folks seeking a particular deck.
Unfortunately, while you might think having an extensive library of
decks would help us to identify the deck you're looking for, it often
makes things more difficult, given that we're overwhelmed with
possibilities.
It's rare that we can identify a deck based on
a brief description of one card. Even if every deck in our library
consisted of only the major arcana, that's still 22 x 1,500 = 33,000
cards... and since many of our decks have 78 cards or sometimes more,
we're actually pushing almost 100,000 individual cards in the
assortment of decks we've assembled here. Although we're a bit ashamed
to admit it, we hope our visitors understand when we say that we
haven't quite gotten the minute details of that many cards all
memorized quite yet.
That said, we're certainly happy to try to help
you identify a deck if we can. But we need more than a general
publication timeframe or a description of a few details on one card.
The best thing you can do to assist us is to email us a scan of one or
more of the cards from the deck you're seeking to identify. If that's
not possible, then you need to send us as many details about the deck
as you are humanly able. We understand if you're working off sparse
information as well, and certainly we'll try to help even if you are
able to tell us nothing more than "it was published around 1970 and has
a blue card." Just don't be surprised if we reply to tell you that we
don't have the foggiest idea.
Q: What is the current market value of
{insert deck name here}?
To be honest, we've really resisted becoming an
appraisal service. In many cases, folks who ask this question are
looking for a hard-and-fast answer, and in reality, there aren't any.
The current market value of any copy of given tarot or cartomantic deck
is dependent upon a large number of conditions. To provide a
more-or-less reliable assessment, we'd really have to see the deck in
question. And even then, such an assessment would only have limited
validity, and only for that
particular moment in time. For example, if we appraise an
out-of-print tarot as having a value of US$ 100, and a publisher
announces the following day that they are reissuing the deck, then the
value would plummet far below the $100 assessment provided a mere 24
hours earlier.
That said, we continue to receive an increasing
number of requests from collectors, and persons involved in trading
transactions, to provide appraisal information for a wide variety of
titles. We do understand the reasons people want this information, and
we're flattered that we're considered to have sufficient expertise to
provide it. And, of course, we do like to be helpful to our customers
whenever possible.
Therefore, in response to "popular demand," we
are beginning to implement a bluebook feature in our database. This
feature went "live" on 13 March 2008, and included bluebook information
for a few scant entries at that time. As time goes on, we anticipate
"fleshing out" this information for a larger number of items.
Our bluebook information is provided with the caveat that the details provided
should not be taken as the be-all and end-all of the valuation
question. To access this feature, you
must have a Tarot
Garden account. This requirement is intended to help ensure
that the information is provided to Tarot Garden customers. We have no
wish to become a free source of appraisal information to every casual
site-surfer, eBay seller, and Amazon Marketplace vendor under the sun
-- and in particular to potential competitors
who are too lazy to do their own research on the market. We reserve the
right to suspend the account of any user who is determined to be using
our bluebook information to sell competing products.
In contrast, we know our loyal, tarot-saavy,
knowledgable customer base understands the limitations and proper usage
of bluebook information, and we certainly don't object to the use of
this information to assist in the determination of collection values or
the fair market pricing
of decks involved in trades or personal collection sell-offs.
To view the bluebook details for a given title,
log into your Tarot Garden account, then search for the title of
interest in our database. You will see a "View Bluebook Value" button
to the right of the title's entry.
Q:
I've made a tarot
deck, and I want to get it published. How do I do that?
We can't really say that we're experts on this
particular subject. We're resellers and documenters, not publishers or
deck creators. Your best bet is to get the submission guidelines from
publishers with a history of marketing tarot decks, or from companies
that specialize in publishing for the new age / personal growth /
alternate lifestyles / pop psychology markets.
However, we can share a few personal
observations and links with you. There are actually very few companies
that primarily produce decks. In North America, the main tarot deck
publisher is U.S. Games Systems. You'll want to be aware, though, that
USG receives a vast number of submissions annually, but they only
select a very few new decks to publish each year. You can access USG's
product submission information and downloadable submission forms by clicking here.
The remaining North American publishers with a
regular history of releasing tarot decks seem to primarily consider
themselves to be book publishers, and not deck publishers per se.
What this means is that you're more likely to have success in
submitting to other publishers if you actually have a decent book
written to accompany your deck. Perhaps the three largest North
American publishers of deck book sets are:
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Llewellyn Worldwide. Click
here for Llewellyn's submission guidelines.
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St. Martin's Press. St. Martin's Press does
not accept unsolicited manuscripts; you'll need to have a literary
agent to submit for you.
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Inner Traditions (a.k.a. Bear &
Company). Click here for Inner Traditions' submission
guidelines.
Check the latest Writers Market guide for other suggestions
on finding publishers whose focus might fit well with tarot-related
products.
If you're outside of North America, or are
willing to try to work with an overseas publisher, the following is a
sampling of European companies that are regular publishers of
cartomantic products:
Two other well-known Italian tarot publishers
-- Lo Scarabeo and il Meneghello -- develop their projects in house and
do not accept outside deck submissions.
We do not have the contact or submission
information for any Asian publishing firms at this time.
Thanks to more advanced and affordable
technology, a growing number of of deck creators are opting to publish
their decks themselves. If you have a self-published deck (or are
planning to self publish), we invite you to write to us at info@tarotgarden.com with your
deck information if you have interest in selling or distributing your
product through our website.
