Possible Greenwood reprint.....

[katrinka]

29 minutes ago, gregory said:

I don't think crowdfunded decks generate royalties actually. It's just lots and lots of money for Mark.

Precisely. No royalties, that's for things like movies and music.

[ilweran]

I have contacted Kickstarter to ask if there is a way to report copyright infringement without being the copyright holder. Awaiting a reply, but I'm not optimistic. They're very clear you need to be the copyright holder.

[ilweran]

49 minutes ago, katrinka said:

Precisely. No royalties, that's for things like movies and music.

I assume they mean a percentage of any profit. They said they've put aside royalties with other reprints (I assume they mean the Celtic Shaman's Pack, possibly books that have been reprinted), but on the face of it that's different as we're talking about mainstream publishers and work where Chesca was presumably more of a hired illustrator than at very least co-creator, and according to some who knew her actual creator with Mark playing a very minor role.

 

But that is all hearsay and assumptions.

 

I'm still puzzled by John Matthews statement that Mark Ryan is the only begetter of the Greenwood. Weird phrasing!

[katrinka]

9 minutes ago, ilweran said:

I have contacted Kickstarter to ask if there is a way to report copyright infringement without being the copyright holder. Awaiting a reply, but I'm not optimistic. They're very clear you need to be the copyright holder.

Same here. I had to get past their silly chatbot to leave a message. I explained the situation and why the copyright holder isn't reporting this. Now I wait for an email. So far all I've gotten is one of those automated "Hello! We've received your message..." things.

I hope more people report/contact Kickstarter. The more, the better and they might actually start looking into this thing.
 

4 minutes ago, ilweran said:

I'm still puzzled by John Matthews statement that Mark Ryan is the only begetter of the Greenwood. Weird phrasing!

Have you ever seen that old movie with John Barrymore? Svengali? 🤣

 

[Laura Borealis]

Unfortunately it seems like he can't lose. Either Chesca breaks her silence, which is a win for him, as he can then try to drag her into negotiations. Or she doesn't challenge him and he makes loads of money. I bet he's literally banking on her valuing her privacy more than a share of the profit.

 

"Begetter" is indeed a weird phrase, with biblical overtones... "To procreate, as a father or sire; to generate" so saith the dictionary... likely meant to bolster his claim as "creator" while giving plausible deniability.

[RunningWild]

Just my two cents...

 

We live in a very litigious society in the states.  I'm not a lawyer either but I've been around long enough to see how it's all done.  IF someone who already owns the original Greenwood decided to back Ryan's 'reprint' of it and compares the two to make certain there are zero differences, I assume they could then sue either KS for failing their due diligence or Ryan for plagiarism and fraud.  To sue Ryan would force him to produce any evidence to his claim.

 

Other than that, is it possible that the copyright has reached its end and so he could then claim it as his own and do as he wishes?

Edited May 4 by RunningWild

[ilweran]

7 minutes ago, RunningWild said:

Other than that, is it possible that the copyright has reached it's end and so he could then claim it as his own and do as he wishes?

I don't see how it could have, copyright expires 70 years after the death of the owner. 

 

Whether he has the rights to reprint or not hinges on the original contract. He has publicly stated in the past that he couldn't reprint without Chesca's permission and that she wasn't available to give it.

 

He is now stating that he always had the right but chose not to out of respect for Chesca.

Edited May 4 by ilweran

[fire cat pickles]

5 hours ago, gregory said:

I do hope people will report it to Kickstarter.

Kickstarter has nothing to lose and everything to gain. They wouldn't be able to get in touch with Chesca anymore the she them.

 

Bottom line is that he is doing this because he knows he can and there isn't anything we can do other than not participate, unless afford one of the originals. And even then, I'm sure this new addition will cheapen those as well.

[katrinka]

6 hours ago, gregory said:

I do hope people will report it to Kickstarter.

It wouldn't let me report, but it did let me leave a message that while it's not my intellectual property, the copyright holder is whereabouts unknown and incommunicado. It's an illegal deck.

The more people do this, the better our chance of success. To leave a message, you have to go through their chatbot. Have what you want to say typed up elsewhere and ready, including relevant links. Copypaste it to the chatbot. The chatbot won't understand and will give you the option to leave a message that an actual person will see. Copypaste your message again.

Best case scenario, we can get this taken down. Please do your part.

Edited May 4 by katrinka

[katrinka]

1 hour ago, fire cat pickles said:

Bottom line is that he is doing this because he knows he can and there isn't anything we can do other than not participate, unless afford one of the originals.

Or print up the images at MiShell's blog. Both myself and Raggy have beautiful, borderless decks with a lovely linen finish. A deck from Printer's Studio costs less than half what that Kickstarter deck costs, and it's better.

And there IS something we can do: make a stink. There is much to be said for making a stink, it's how people got rights like the womens' vote, Civil Rights, labor laws, etc. Surely we can get this Kickstarter shut down if enough of us TRY.
 

1 hour ago, fire cat pickles said:

I'm sure this new addition will cheapen those as well.

It will. I'm sure the people who just love Chesca's art and paid $1000+ on ebay are NOT happy about this.

[fire cat pickles]

I hope you're right. It would be sweet if Kickstarter would do something.

[katrinka]

I'd love to see Ryan hounded for all those pledge refunds!
He's in need of some karma.

Edited May 4 by katrinka

[Teemu]

No credit card has been charged so far. That will take place only after the pledge has ended.

[gregory]

Well let's hope it can be stopped before the close date. It's just SO disrespectful as well as plain greedy, and that interview was entirely clear; he knows he can't do it.. He's just hoping she doesn't want to come out of hiding to go for him.

 

But note - as a "superbacker" I've had pledges collected after the target was reached and before the close date before now. As a matter of interest - don't forget anyone backing from the US will have to pay tariffs as well as duty....

[Rose Lalonde]

It's still marked by Kickstarter as "Project we love" with the green heart. Doesn't fill me with a sense that any abuse complaints so far have made Kickstarter concerned yet. But I'm sure it takes a while before they look at those, and there are 26 days to go.

[JoyousGirl]

13 hours ago, Teemu said:

I think that there is something like an implicit consent from Chesca's side, in the last line

 

No, I don't believe so. It's a way of indicating that someone is the author of a work so that they get credit if anyone wishes to use it. There's a certain amount of peoples' work that can be used when copyright is in play - and that amount of acceptable use is different in each country. Much like when referring to ideas you've got from reading academic articles and using a quote in a university essay you need to cite the source otherwise it's plagiarism - passing someone else's work off as your own.

 

There should always be credit given if someone's work is used so that others can refer to the author - it may mean extra work for the author, alternatively, as in this case, if they wish to use it for commercial purposes they must have the author's permission and the author must get any profits made according to their involvement in the creation. In this case I'd say the art sells the deck, and it was based on intellectual property devised and developed through Chesca's studies. 

 

Of course, I'm no lawyer but that's the gist of it. This is clearly commercial purposes. If he wrote the book he could sell that, but not the cards, in my ignorant opinion.

[JoyousGirl]

4 hours ago, katrinka said:

Or print up the images at MiShell's blog

 

I looked at those - and some of the images are different sizes. How did you work to modify that? 

[ilweran]

33 minutes ago, JoyousGirl said:

I looked at those - and some of the images are different sizes. How did you work to modify that? 

I think the major arcana artwork is a different size to the minor arcana in the published deck.

[Rodney]

I read the comments in the Kickstarter campaign. As of earlier this afternoon they were all fawning and falling over themselves to thank Mark and Chesca for this reprint... 😖

[katrinka]

5 hours ago, Rose Lalonde said:

Doesn't fill me with a sense that any abuse complaints so far have made Kickstarter concerned yet. But I'm sure it takes a while before they look at those, and there are 26 days to go

I haven't heard back from them. It's only been a day, though.

 

5 hours ago, JoyousGirl said:

There's a certain amount of peoples' work that can be used when copyright is in play - and that amount of acceptable use is different in each country.

Yes, "Fair Use." It does vary a lot and it's unclear in some ways, but it basically allows us to use copyrighted work for criticism, commentary, or education.
One example of education might be posting a photo of a Greenwood spread on a blog and breaking down how you read it. That falls under Fair Use.
But not raising almost $80,000 to reprint a deck you don't own the rights to, obviously.
 

5 hours ago, ilweran said:

I think the major arcana artwork is a different size to the minor arcana in the published deck.

Yes, it's longer for some reason. You can see it on the header at MiShell's blog. The Majors have a title bar, but the Minors have both a title bar and a keyword bar. You can do yours like that, or not. The thing about printing up your own copy is that you can make the tweaks and do it to your taste.

It's more of an issue with taller, thin cards that are Tarot sized. The poker sized deck was easy. It's been a few years since I uploaded the images from the PDF to Printer's Studio, but I probably sacrificed a tiny bit from the tops and bottoms of the Majors. The Minors fit near perfectly with no tweaking.
Others will have different solutions.
 

5 hours ago, Rodney said:

I read the comments in the Kickstarter campaign. As of earlier this afternoon they were all fawning and falling over themselves to thank Mark and Chesca for this reprint... 😖

 
Yes. I almost had an "Oopsie, there goes dinner" moment.

[gregory]

Yes - the comments are nauseating. AS the were last time he tried this for a limited edition of 100 decks, which I THINK Lindsay (Chesca's brother) managed to prevent. Even TABI got behind it. I knew a couple of people left TABI over that.

 

And yes - the book he can sell. Chesca hated it; she published her own book saying what she had MEANT the deck to be about on her website, and said at the time the book Mark had put out was the reason she would not allow the deck to be reprinted. And he seems to be selling that on the KS. The same book he republished with the Wildwood without even checking that the text matched the cards (it didn't.) Which in turn was very unfair on Will Worthington, a good artist who created a very nice deck, but NOT a Greenwood, and NOT fitting the book Mark put out with it.

[gregory]

OH MY - just reading his blurb on KS. FULL of lies. She had finished most of the artwork before she even had the bad luck to meet Mark. But at least he admits there that all the art was hers.

Edited May 5 by gregory

[ilweran]

42 minutes ago, gregory said:

Chesca hated it; she published her own book saying what she had MEANT the deck to be about on her website, and said at the time the book Mark had put out was the reason she would not allow the deck to be reprinted.

Where did she say this? I don't suppose there's a record of it somewhere online - I assume not as I've not come across it while researching the deck.

 

Or of Chesca having created most of the deck before even meeting Mark.

 

I don't know about her brother achieving anything, but I think it's notable that despite Mark and John Matthews both having contacts in the publishing industry that they seemingly couldn't get it published. I'd have thought that at least the publisher of the Wildwood - which has been very successful - would have been interested in the Greenwood, unless their legal department said 'nope'.

Edited May 5 by ilweran

[gregory]

I think they said nope too. Copyright is copyright.

 

I think it used to be on her site, where she published her own book. About creating the deck before she met him - someone mentioned that on carto, IIRC.

 

Either way - she did say that she didn't want it reprinted and Lindsay said the same when the row kicked in last time Mark tried.

[ilweran]

51 minutes ago, gregory said:

I think it used to be on her site, where she published her own book. About creating the deck before she met him - someone mentioned that on carto, IIRC.

I don't recall that (the comment or reading it on her website), but I might pop onto the Wayback Machine and have a nose around when I have a minute.