It seems that the mod wanted us to start a new thread for this topic outside of the altered art thread so here it is.
This thread is for discussing this obvious nuclear bomb of a problem to the altered art community and what can be done to correct it.
Currently Ebay has banned the sale of all Altered art cards on its site, claiming that they violate "trademarks" held by wizards of the coast, and thus putting them in the same catagory as "counterfeits", and "unauthorized replicas" which they clearly are not.
Wizards stance on the issue is that they whole heartedly, and publicly support card alters, but Ebay does not take such support into consideration.
My thoughts it that we must organize a campaign against Ebay bombarding them with as many complaints, and thought out responses as possible. I have contacted every single buyer i have ever had and informed them of the situation...hopefully a broad enough campaign will change their minds....
It is an interesting topic, since technically any alter that covers the artist credit is a violation of copyright law, specifically the creator's moral right to have their work correctly attributed to them;
Quote from Berne Convention »
Article 6bis of the Berne Convention protects attribution and integrity, stating:
Independent of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action in relation to the said work, which would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation.
so covering the artist credit + then signing the work is pretty iffy under this convention. . . + all those sexy anime Islands just might be offensive to John Avon, so selling them, with his name on the bottom. . .
Important to note that, even if WotC sanctions this, the individual artists may not. eBay is playing it safe here.
Rianalnn--that is apparently not the case here.... for example this item here.
It is completely new art, and completely hides any previous art. Yet it is still banned under Ebay policy...... their policy is simply nonsensical...
Bizarre What exactly is the policy they're waving around?
I mean, it's not like I expect too much from eBay, they are what they are, but I can't imagine under what copyright/counterfeiting banner they'd chase that up. No, I take that back - if the card back is still normal, I see them slinking there.
Yes they are considering any card that is modified to be violating the card creators trademark. ANY modification, apparently now includes signatures. As a ton of autographed listings on the site have just been nuked...
I imagine they're just covering their bases, + perhaps will let the community rebuild. . . but what an awful way to go.
I wonder if I contacted WotC's brand department, if they'd give a legal ok to make alters, + if that ok would satisfy eBay
I would suggest e-mailing WoTC's brand department, or any department that will listen. Wizards has been pretty adamant about maintaining a secondary market for those who like to collect 'special' cards be it foil or painted alters. I doubt they want to see a popular aspect of their game get lost because of an overly restrictive eBay policy.
Thus far, I have tried to communicate with Wizards, but my e-mail has just been sent up the ladder to the 'managers' from what I've been told. Hopefully I get something more, but I would suggest continuing to e-mail both eBay and Wizards in regards to the matter. I have a feeling if Wizards gave the 'okay' to eBay as it were, they would be more willing to play ball instead of lay a blanket prohibition on any and all painted cards.
WOTC has already given a legal OK to make card alters, as well as had an entire public article on their website detailing their support for such items. Ebay apparently does not care.
So far it seems they have been pretty heavy on the ban hammer, and it doesn't look like rebuilding is going to occur until this policy is fixed...
An odd side effect...apparently an autographed mox is now virtually unsellable due to the Ebay ban, and thus nearly worthless.
An odd side effect...apparently an autographed mox is now virtually unsellable due to the Ebay ban, and thus nearly worthless.
I don't see that being the case. Yes, eBay is the easiest way for a person to move signed Power, but I can't see anyone letting it go for less than list when you just put it in a shop on consignment. Hundreds of dollars = worth the effort
That said, point these worthless Moxen my way, I promise will find them loving homes
Maybe not, but who is going to buy a mox they know they can't ebay off when they can just as easily buy one that they can.... I see this dropping the value of some of these cards by 50% or more.... There is just no sane reason to ever buy a nonebayable one unless its very sharply discounted... Personally a nonebayable mox to me would be almost worthless, as no sane person would purchase it, hell one with a hole torn it, that was runover by a truck would actually be more marketable now....
You can put a card on consignment in a shop, IF you can find a store that will do it, but even if you do it will likely just sit there for months on end unless you price it WAY under market value....
WOTC has already given a legal OK to make card alters, as well as had an entire public article on their website detailing their support for such items. Ebay apparently does not care.
So far it seems they have been pretty heavy on the ban hammer, and it doesn't look like rebuilding is going to occur until this policy is fixed...
An odd side effect...apparently an autographed mox is now virtually unsellable due to the Ebay ban, and thus nearly worthless.
WoTC hasn't technically given the legal OK to make the card alters, officially anyhow. It can be inferred by many of their articles and what not, but the eBay policy has been placed basically because they are afraid that Wizards is gonna do something, so if WoTC has given the okay, eBay is unaware. Ebay isn't going to ban the selling of trading cards for no reason, it's a big money loss for them to do it. They make money from the listing, the paypal transaction, etc etc etc. If Wizards does give eBay the ok, nothing bad is gonna happen, we support altered/painted cards, then eBay isn't gonna have much reason to prohibit it since it would be a bad financial decision to do so with little risk left.
Maybe not, but who is going to buy a mox they know they can't ebay off when they can just as easily buy one that they can.... I see this dropping the value of some of these cards by 50% or more.... There is just no sane reason to ever buy a nonebayable one unless its very sharply discounted... Personally a nonebayable mox to me would be almost worthless, as no sane person would purchase it, hell one with a hole torn it, that was runover by a truck would actually be more marketable now....
You can put a card on consignment in a shop, IF you can find a store that will do it, but even if you do it will likely just sit there for months on end unless you price it WAY under market value....
what fool would devalue a mox by 50% because ebay didn't want it on its' site? that's the stupidest thing i've read on salvation in a while. it doesn't even make a lick of sense.
because apparently you'd never be able to sell it anywhere else? like here? motl/other online communities? local shops? tournies? local boards? start your own online shop?
It is interesting that Ebay hasn't taken down any of the 982 returned search results under "signed baseball cards"...
Or MTG signed!! Rainman has no idea what he's talking about. Ebay is not removing signed cards from their site. There's currently 101 signed auctions up right now, including a Mox Jet.
And just to relieve any further nonsensical discussion - the whole reason Ebay took down the altered cards is because morons were printing MSE renders of powerful cards, gluing those onto basic lands, and selling them as "altered." Not only is that illegal proxying, but the art they were using was mostly copyrighted. Ebay can't monitor and judge every auction for "MTG altered" that passes through the site, so they made a blanket ruling. The printers ruined it for us all. End of story.
I'm gonna have to agree with Bristol here. Searching "mtg altered" has only brought up 14 results for me, 2 are Amy Weber alters, the rest are signed stuff. There are still plenty of signed cards out there.
Before all this happened, I was seeing more and more of these asian **** token cards being printed on cardstock. Like a day before that I saw Wraths with weather photography printed on them. Also, "textless" Maelstrom Pulses. So while the printer as a medium isn't an issue for me artistcally, the people printing out Wizards copyrighted **** is.
Bcal--the wraths and pulses were actually legitimate....they were the real cards with glued on pics.... not something I would personally buy, or want, but they were no more illegal then a painted on card.
Bristol--MTG autographed had like 140 listings removed....I'm pretty sure "MTG signed" will likely be hit shortly...
The asian tokens are actually violating ZERO copyrights at all as they don't even have to be on actual magic cards, and could technically be used for any game...
Bcal--the wraths and pulses were actually legitimate....they were the real cards with glued on pics.... not something I would personally buy, or want, but they were no more illegal then a painted on card.
Proof?
I can't imagine that the individuals doing this were gluing the prints onto actual Pulses rather than onto basics or crap commons. I mean, the source of the problem is that you can do that to a crap common instead of the Pulse, sell both, profit more, and nobody can identify the crap common as not being a pulse anymore.
RanMn, you are blatantly using other people's art ON TOP OF covering Magic cards. Hell, the only sin you aren't committing is signing it AS YOUR OWN.
I think printing stuff onto cards, and labeling it as altering just gives the rest of us a bad name. It's hardly art to begin with (especially considering most of it is badly fitted/formatted onto the card anyways), and seeing something like this happen to the honest alterers is a shame.
As far as I see it, if you are only extending the art, leave the artist's name. It's courtesy, and it helps legally. If it's original, sign it as your own, but mention in the auction that the original artist of the card did not do it.
Obviously commissions are entirely different, you can do whatever you want.
Meh, selling alters on ebay still works, just keep the offenses to a minimum, and you know who you are when I say offenses.
Bristol--MTG autographed had like 140 listings removed....I'm pretty sure "MTG signed" will likely be hit shortly...
Umm. No it won't. Listen, if you don't know why eBay acted as it did, than why did you create this thread? They saw you using other people's anime art, printing it over Magic cards, and calling it your own work, and selling it. Then, they took down anything that could be similar. Signed cards have nothing whatsoever to do with this, unless you want to go report them for some inane reason.
Citing eBay as the bad guy here makes no sense. They aren't doing it to spite anyone, they are doing it because they see work that is clearly not the property of the people selling it. As far as extended alters go, leaving the original copyright should be all you need, though I'm skeptical whether it's really needed. As far as original art goes, nothing should be wrong with it, as long as you cite whether something is a proxy, or not the original artist's work.
Bcal--the wraths and pulses were actually legitimate....they were the real cards with glued on pics.... not something I would personally buy, or want, but they were no more illegal then a painted on card.
Bristol--MTG autographed had like 140 listings removed....I'm pretty sure "MTG signed" will likely be hit shortly...
The asian tokens are actually violating ZERO copyrights at all as they don't even have to be on actual magic cards, and could technically be used for any game...
Rainman, I think it's time for you to move on and find a new get rich quick scheme. Unless you can prove those wraths and pulses were legit, you have no real argument.
Do you even have anyone that wants to back up your petty fight with Ebay? Are you going to sue them? Bombard them with emails? What's your plan and what makes you think it will actually work?
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Do you even have anyone that wants to back up your petty fight with Ebay? Are you going to sue them? Bombard them with emails? What's your plan and what makes you think it will actually work?
His plan was to mass report everyone else on the site probably (mass reporting signed cards won't work btw).
However this started, it has a very seriously-hurtful potential on the alteration market. Where will this end up? If Wizards gets somehow involved, I think you'll see a boatload of new problems introduced. I feel pretty strongly that they would rather see the "print new art on a Magic cardback"-style alterat...er..."things" just go away, but then what of the stuff like Masamune's total repaints of Force Of Will and YawgWill? Some higher-level judges I've spoken to say that the DCI stance unofficially is that a card has to pass the "at a glance" test to be playable in a sanctioned tournament; i.e., if you were to walk by a table and quickly look over the cards, you should be able to identify what is there. I would imagine that the market for quality alters will drop in both quantity and price if Wizards starts paying closer attention and the only place you can now play the cards are at your kitchen table...
This whole situatio is kinda a pisser but really what can you do as Ebay ultimately is a private site and has the right to decide who or what they will let in. Unless you can prove some sort of legal discrimination on their part which is unlikely you are just wasting your time for the most part. A far more productive route I think is going to be changing how the auctions are named and seeing if that makes a difference.
A few terminologies I have been thinking of instead of "Altered Art" are "Agumented Art", "Original Art", and "Hand Painted/Drawn" Or even something alone the lines of "Original Artwork painted on a ______ MTG Card"
My bggest problem with what Ebay is doing is that I personally see no difference as far as the law would be concerned between what we are doing, altering MTG cards, and what a collage artist or scrapbooker does except that the art of the collace artist or scrapbooker is allowed on Ebay. As long as we, the artists/sellers, do not claim a card to be other than what Wizards originally printed it as I fail to see the problem but here I guess I am just beating a dead horse...
I'm trying a listing as 'MTG painted' right now, but I still have not received a clear answer from eBay Trust & Safety department. The moment I hear something I will post the response here. I also emailed WotC and have been escalated to their legal department so we will see what happens.
@ck
yeah i saw your bazaar was back up, hope this is allowed and it stays fine seems very petty for ebay to remove everything if its a title issue! especially as with all them fees and no refunds they are laughing all the way to the bank with our money.
what annoys me most is i never received an investigation has started or anything just my card and any record of its existence had vanished!!! they didnt ask nor care what i had or have to say
When they remove a listing, everything vanishes.
My Bazaar before had 16 hours left on it, and because they nuked the listing in this fashion I lost any way of contacting the highest bidder at the time.
I find it unfortunate that some people seem to view card altering as strictly a fast way to make easy money. What a shame. You should do it because you enjoy it and the game. Sure, be proud of the fact that your skill and talent have enabled you to make a buck off of it but don't throw a ***** fit when it starts to fall apart.
This is, of course, directed at rainman. I wouldn't bring this up if I didn't think that you only do this for money, not because you care about Magic or being artistically creative. All I see is someone throwing a temper tantrum because they can't sell their crap on ebay anymore. You CAN still alter you know.
CardKitty, Yawg, Fourhoursemen, Masamune, Bigup, Bcal, Bristol, Nofingers, bleedingteddy,laura, klug and anyone else I forgot (this was hastily written), keep kicking ass. I love all of your work.
This thread is for discussing this obvious nuclear bomb of a problem to the altered art community and what can be done to correct it.
Currently Ebay has banned the sale of all Altered art cards on its site, claiming that they violate "trademarks" held by wizards of the coast, and thus putting them in the same catagory as "counterfeits", and "unauthorized replicas" which they clearly are not.
Wizards stance on the issue is that they whole heartedly, and publicly support card alters, but Ebay does not take such support into consideration.
My thoughts it that we must organize a campaign against Ebay bombarding them with as many complaints, and thought out responses as possible. I have contacted every single buyer i have ever had and informed them of the situation...hopefully a broad enough campaign will change their minds....
It is an interesting topic, since technically any alter that covers the artist credit is a violation of copyright law, specifically the creator's moral right to have their work correctly attributed to them;
so covering the artist credit + then signing the work is pretty iffy under this convention. . . + all those sexy anime Islands just might be offensive to John Avon, so selling them, with his name on the bottom. . .
Important to note that, even if WotC sanctions this, the individual artists may not. eBay is playing it safe here.
. . . just as I start trying my hand at alters
It is completely new art, and completely hides any previous art. Yet it is still banned under Ebay policy...... their policy is simply nonsensical...
We really need to get abit organized if we are going to have any chance of fixing this situation...
CK's helpdesk?
I mean, it's not like I expect too much from eBay, they are what they are, but I can't imagine under what copyright/counterfeiting banner they'd chase that up. No, I take that back - if the card back is still normal, I see them slinking there.
I imagine they're just covering their bases, + perhaps will let the community rebuild. . . but what an awful way to go.
I wonder if I contacted WotC's brand department, if they'd give a legal ok to make alters, + if that ok would satisfy eBay
I would suggest e-mailing WoTC's brand department, or any department that will listen. Wizards has been pretty adamant about maintaining a secondary market for those who like to collect 'special' cards be it foil or painted alters. I doubt they want to see a popular aspect of their game get lost because of an overly restrictive eBay policy.
Thus far, I have tried to communicate with Wizards, but my e-mail has just been sent up the ladder to the 'managers' from what I've been told. Hopefully I get something more, but I would suggest continuing to e-mail both eBay and Wizards in regards to the matter. I have a feeling if Wizards gave the 'okay' to eBay as it were, they would be more willing to play ball instead of lay a blanket prohibition on any and all painted cards.
Here
RGWUB
So far it seems they have been pretty heavy on the ban hammer, and it doesn't look like rebuilding is going to occur until this policy is fixed...
An odd side effect...apparently an autographed mox is now virtually unsellable due to the Ebay ban, and thus nearly worthless.
That said, point these worthless Moxen my way, I promise will find them loving homes
You can put a card on consignment in a shop, IF you can find a store that will do it, but even if you do it will likely just sit there for months on end unless you price it WAY under market value....
WoTC hasn't technically given the legal OK to make the card alters, officially anyhow. It can be inferred by many of their articles and what not, but the eBay policy has been placed basically because they are afraid that Wizards is gonna do something, so if WoTC has given the okay, eBay is unaware. Ebay isn't going to ban the selling of trading cards for no reason, it's a big money loss for them to do it. They make money from the listing, the paypal transaction, etc etc etc. If Wizards does give eBay the ok, nothing bad is gonna happen, we support altered/painted cards, then eBay isn't gonna have much reason to prohibit it since it would be a bad financial decision to do so with little risk left.
Here
RGWUB
what fool would devalue a mox by 50% because ebay didn't want it on its' site? that's the stupidest thing i've read on salvation in a while. it doesn't even make a lick of sense.
because apparently you'd never be able to sell it anywhere else? like here? motl/other online communities? local shops? tournies? local boards? start your own online shop?
--->DJ
Or MTG signed!! Rainman has no idea what he's talking about. Ebay is not removing signed cards from their site. There's currently 101 signed auctions up right now, including a Mox Jet.
And just to relieve any further nonsensical discussion - the whole reason Ebay took down the altered cards is because morons were printing MSE renders of powerful cards, gluing those onto basic lands, and selling them as "altered." Not only is that illegal proxying, but the art they were using was mostly copyrighted. Ebay can't monitor and judge every auction for "MTG altered" that passes through the site, so they made a blanket ruling. The printers ruined it for us all. End of story.
RRR Buy some of my art! Prints! RRR
Before all this happened, I was seeing more and more of these asian **** token cards being printed on cardstock. Like a day before that I saw Wraths with weather photography printed on them. Also, "textless" Maelstrom Pulses. So while the printer as a medium isn't an issue for me artistcally, the people printing out Wizards copyrighted **** is.
Bristol--MTG autographed had like 140 listings removed....I'm pretty sure "MTG signed" will likely be hit shortly...
The asian tokens are actually violating ZERO copyrights at all as they don't even have to be on actual magic cards, and could technically be used for any game...
Proof?
I can't imagine that the individuals doing this were gluing the prints onto actual Pulses rather than onto basics or crap commons. I mean, the source of the problem is that you can do that to a crap common instead of the Pulse, sell both, profit more, and nobody can identify the crap common as not being a pulse anymore.
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I think printing stuff onto cards, and labeling it as altering just gives the rest of us a bad name. It's hardly art to begin with (especially considering most of it is badly fitted/formatted onto the card anyways), and seeing something like this happen to the honest alterers is a shame.
As far as I see it, if you are only extending the art, leave the artist's name. It's courtesy, and it helps legally. If it's original, sign it as your own, but mention in the auction that the original artist of the card did not do it.
Obviously commissions are entirely different, you can do whatever you want.
Meh, selling alters on ebay still works, just keep the offenses to a minimum, and you know who you are when I say offenses.
Umm. No it won't. Listen, if you don't know why eBay acted as it did, than why did you create this thread? They saw you using other people's anime art, printing it over Magic cards, and calling it your own work, and selling it. Then, they took down anything that could be similar. Signed cards have nothing whatsoever to do with this, unless you want to go report them for some inane reason.
Citing eBay as the bad guy here makes no sense. They aren't doing it to spite anyone, they are doing it because they see work that is clearly not the property of the people selling it. As far as extended alters go, leaving the original copyright should be all you need, though I'm skeptical whether it's really needed. As far as original art goes, nothing should be wrong with it, as long as you cite whether something is a proxy, or not the original artist's work.
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Rainman, I think it's time for you to move on and find a new get rich quick scheme. Unless you can prove those wraths and pulses were legit, you have no real argument.
Do you even have anyone that wants to back up your petty fight with Ebay? Are you going to sue them? Bombard them with emails? What's your plan and what makes you think it will actually work?
His plan was to mass report everyone else on the site probably (mass reporting signed cards won't work btw).
Art Page
Alters for sale
It's not good.
--->DJ
A few terminologies I have been thinking of instead of "Altered Art" are "Agumented Art", "Original Art", and "Hand Painted/Drawn" Or even something alone the lines of "Original Artwork painted on a ______ MTG Card"
My bggest problem with what Ebay is doing is that I personally see no difference as far as the law would be concerned between what we are doing, altering MTG cards, and what a collage artist or scrapbooker does except that the art of the collace artist or scrapbooker is allowed on Ebay. As long as we, the artists/sellers, do not claim a card to be other than what Wizards originally printed it as I fail to see the problem but here I guess I am just beating a dead horse...
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When they remove a listing, everything vanishes.
My Bazaar before had 16 hours left on it, and because they nuked the listing in this fashion I lost any way of contacting the highest bidder at the time.
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This is, of course, directed at rainman. I wouldn't bring this up if I didn't think that you only do this for money, not because you care about Magic or being artistically creative. All I see is someone throwing a temper tantrum because they can't sell their crap on ebay anymore. You CAN still alter you know.
CardKitty, Yawg, Fourhoursemen, Masamune, Bigup, Bcal, Bristol, Nofingers, bleedingteddy,laura, klug and anyone else I forgot (this was hastily written), keep kicking ass. I love all of your work.