There are a lot of big, scary words quoted by Hannes, but here are my quick thoughts:
Their whole argument is based on altered cards being "derivative works," which most courts agree they are not. A "derivative work" is:
a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a "derivative work".
This definition is straight out of a federal statute. It clearly contemplates the situation where someone creates a new work that's based off a copyrighted work, and not where someone modifies a legally-produced copy of a copyrighted work.
Admittedly, the Ninth Circuit thought otherwise in the Mirage Editions case, where it said that the words "transformed" or "adapted" may make alterations into "derivative works," thereby offering original artists some ongoing copyright protection.
But most other federal appeals courts have disagreed, most notably the Seventh Circuit in the Lee case, where it said the Ninth Circuit's logic threatened to "establish[ ] through the back door an extraordinarily broad version of authors' moral rights, under which artists may block any modification of their works of which they disapprove."
But WTF do I know? I don't have an "Esq." after my name.
well it looks like Todd Lockwood does think the same way mr beard thinks. well in 1 way only. he did state he didn't like others altering his art. But what they differ is he did state he doesn't own the copyright and to get a legal answer ask them.
maybe we need to do away if it's legal or not. and just ask the artist if he minds. maybe that will prevent another thing happening like it just did.
ps when i say all this about doing away with the legal part of it. i only mean for personal use only. not selling. for selling you still will need the copyright holders permission
for selling you still will need the copyright holders permission
The only place that there seems to be any law indicating that is in the 9th circuit, AFAIK, again, hereby rehashing stuff that's already been discussed above.
We, as the current *CARD* owner does not have to ask permission to change or alter the card because *WE* own that card. Thats ridiculous and ludicrous.
We are not altering the original art and furthermore if other artists pursue this line of thinking - they will be frustrated at the most because there is nothing they can do to stop these kind of actions taken by magicplayers.
Do alter work, Do sell or trade them as alter cards. You are not doing anything wrong if you are selling something yours. The card.
Edward is going to loose a lot of time pursuing this. srsly.:facepalm:
And the entire "not joining the forum" thing - it shows nothing but the lack of respect that Ed has to a well-established community that is the magicplayer community.
I am more concerned about artists that create some memorable artwork (Guay, Avon, Staples to name a few) than those that are merely hired as a "fantasy artist #3" .
Edward thank for your art, and the amazing display of personality. We now know how you really are
And the entire "not joining the forum" thing - it shows nothing but the lack of respect that Ed has to a well-established community that is the magicplayer community.
do you think if he joined the forum he would really be treated equaly by all. I think no. there has been way to many people bad mouthing him way before anyone even said. hey lets try to get him on here. I mean why go into a battle knowing you will be bad mouthed and get nothing for it. as for him responding through me. well i can only guess it's his lawyer trying to point out a few things for the record of everything.
a few good points he has brought up are people covering the orginal artist's name and signing there own in the alters. Sure it may not look great on full art cards. but it's disrespecting the orginal artist and claiing you did the fll art yourself.
also todd Lockwood did bring up a good point. what if the altered art looks bad. and you leave his name on the card. who will really know did the alter(unless signed) or truely what the card looks like off hand. sure you can look it up. But when you look at a bad alter you kinda remember hey that card looked bad. maybe think it was just the orginal art that was bad in the first place. who knows. so that affects the orginal artist a bit.
on the other hand if you do a bang up job and leave both the orginal artist name and yours on there. do you think it's fair if someone gives the credit to the oginal artist.(even tho you said it wasn't altered by them(i've seen a lot of people think this way)) personaly i don't see how that's fair to the person who altered it. if you do the work you should get full credit for it.
on a side note who here would get mad if you did a great alter and sell it. then someone comes along further alters your alter even better. then go and sells it for big bucks. would you get a bit mad about this? (yes i've seen this a few times on ebay)
I have mentioned this a couple of times before, but I never sign anything I make. The value I want to be attached is to the object, not the brand. So, if you add your signature to my work and sell it for more, then apparently your name is worth something. Mine isn't, so more power to you. I never give my product away, so it's not like I would be upset that a card I sold to you for $45 went for $100 on ebay the next week*. I decide what I value it at and I sell it at that. I would much rather a piece not sell than sell it for less that I think it is worth.
on a side note who here would get mad if you did a great alter and sell it. then someone comes along further alters your alter even better. then go and sells it for big bucks. would you get a bit mad about this? (yes i've seen this a few times on ebay)
Not me and your argument is kind of silly. If you add value to something you bought from me and benefit from that... Kudos. It's yours and you are free to do with it what you want.
(*Although legally you might owe me money as odd as that seems. Yes I lived in the 9 District at the time to whomever asked about that earlier.)
While I disagree with some of Mr. Beard's statements, he makes some valid points.
I do not at all think that altering cards is wrong. As a matter of fact, I encourage it and think it is beneficial to the MTG community.
However, when people started selling these cards, or more specifically, doing it upon commission to earn a profit without consulting the original artists or WotC, they crossed a line. I know that many people in the altering business use it as a main source of income.
I think a good basis for comparison would be to the Electronica/Techno music genre. Alot of content is created by mixing sampled (or borrowed) music from other musicians. For this to happen (legally) the person or group sampling music has to request permission if it explicitly isn't covered under the creative commons license. Sometimes this even means that royalties end up heading back to the creators of the original sounds. While this may be a pain, the Electronic music industry continues to flourish. I don't think it's unreasonable to request permission from the original artist(s) and WotC if you are intending to sell an altered card for profit.
I think that Mr. Beard approached this in completely the wrong way that has only caused more setbacks on behalf of those who would want to be consulted before having their works altered. Nonetheless, it is fair for them to ask that people require permission to sell altered versions of their works.
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I don't care if you're a moderator but you sir have said a very, very stupid thing.
The altered card market is a subset of the secondary market, isn't it? Wizards can't tell you what to do with a card once you own it. It would be an enormous amount of work for Wizards to hunt down alterers and as they aren't losing any money I doubt they're interested in putting a stop to it. If Wizards profitted from the secondary market then you can bet that they'd do their best to put a stop to the sale of alters. There doesn't really seem to be a legal debate so much as an ethical debate. Even then it only applies to art that is derived directly(i.e. extending the art, simply painting something on it w/o erasing the original art, etc...) from the original art. Derivative works are clearly "inspired by" the original and the orginal artist should be cited. But its not required.
Ta-da. In other words, because Ed Beard didn't actually paint the image on each individual card, the art on cards are considered copies. Copyright law only protects the rights of the original work.
I do not agree with Ed Beard's opinion because he didn't actually paint the card images; a machine did. He has all the reason to get mad if his original work is defaced, but not these reproductions. Heck, Wizards isn't even obligated to print the artists' names on the cards had it not been in their contract.
I agree with what Mr. Beard has said about young artists and the lack of respect. This post is a perfect example of it. People who could care less about the original piece and start throwing around technicalities like this. Would you really expect an artist to paint every single magic cards within a couple inches. And I also agree with troll like posts about this serious issue being removed from said threads.
I think people should use a little common sense when thinking about the issue. Do I agree with the actions being taken by Mr. Beard? No. But just after reading his email reply above you can tell all he wanted was an ounce of respect from posters and card altering artist. He says that he "might" grant permissionto alter a card. It seems to me all Mr. Beard ever wanted was an email or simply approached about the subject. Does he seem a little sensitive for my tastes? Sure he does. But for someone who has been commisioning cards for WOTC this long if that's what he wants then give it to him.
I'm not the smartest guy out there and my grammar lacks alot but it seems all he ever wanted was a little sympathy and some sign of respect. It seems he has been put on display in a way and I'll admit I got excited when I first found the threads containing this subject. My opinion has changed since yesterday though. I think he should stop the legal debates and I think even card altering artists should approach this subject with a little more respect. Sorry if my opinion didn't add much to the discussion but I needed to say it.
I think people should use a little common sense when thinking about the issue. Do I agree with the actions being taken by Mr. Beard? No. But just after reading his email reply above you can tell all he wanted was an ounce of respect from posters and card altering artist. He says that he "might" grant permissionto alter a card. .
Except instead of being civil he threatens lawsuit and uses a myraid of insults.
Its human nature to respond hostilily(warning I'm tired, this word may be non-existant) to hostile actions.
Since I doubt he has a legal case throwing a tantrumn over something dumb and not affecting him in the slightest is not the way to get an apology.
Ed Beard is an Illustrator, not an artist. I say that with respect to what he does for a living. Art is something that was and always is rooted in sharing something. An artist is committed to presenting something appealing to an onlooker, be it a lyrical poem, or a painting of grandeur. An illustrator is just a commissioned, in that the basic idea behind the act is to make money, as opposed to making people think.
No offense, but this post means that you've never studied art. Either that or you just said that pretty much every single "artist" in history was actually an "illustrator".
Sorry for the offtopic, BTW.
EDIT: Back on-topic. Seems eBay has been kicking some people out, including suspending card kitty's account for a year. And it seems to come from WotC...
So is there a final answer to whether or not you can sell alters on ebay or not?
If you are making unique work on the card, then yes. If you are extending, there is a slim chance you might get it taken down (or something similar...), and if you are, you will be better "protected" if you not only mention the original artist in the auction, but also leave the name on the card. It's lame, but it's more or less because if you do otherwise, it appears that you are taking credit for it.
Actually someone pretending to be wizards of the coast is killing every auction on ebay for altered art cards by abusing the VeRO program... so at the moment selling any alters on ebay is nondoable until this individual coughbeardcough...is sued out of existence.
I can understand there being anger over the name of the artist being painted over, however you'd think that if the name was left un altered that he wouldnt mind another person extending teh art outside of the box he was allowed to illustrate. People don't pick ugly arts to modify..
I wonder how many people would find it annoying if I complained just as much about creature combat, because I dislike games where people do nothing but cast creatures, butt heads and do boring combat math?
I can understand there being anger over the name of the artist being painted over, however you'd think that if the name was left un altered that he wouldnt mind another person extending teh art outside of the box he was allowed to illustrate. People don't pick ugly arts to modify..
I don't know about that last part. People pick cards to get altered for a number of reasons and the preexisting art isn't always the main reason. I would say that close to half the cards I have done had art that I, personally, think is ugly.
The is not, and never has been, the quality of the art or the quality of the extension. The issue is the legality of altering and selling cards.
not very, considering the art was done to make fun of the art director at the time. Though it is kind of funny that the artist who made it is the very same one who is currently the fascist individual who is being a jerk to the MTG fan base.
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"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of solving approaches zero." -- Varsuvius, Order of the Stick
Though it is kind of funny that the artist who made it is the very same one who is currently the fascist individual who is being a jerk to the MTG fan base.
/my point
Anyway, how is altering a card you legally purchased any different from remixing a song on an album, or modifying software you legally purchased to work on your machine (not licensed, but purchased).
Even without considering legality, I certainly don't consider the altering of IP (music, software, film) to be a moral affront of any kind to the original author.
Fan fiction or doujinshi is made in utmost respect of the original work or property.
It's an inside joke. One of the primary reasons Beard no longer does work for Magic was that he had a falling out with the art director at the time, Jeremy Cranford. If anything, Beard illustrating the card shows he's a good sport about what happened.
I talked about this subject not too long ago with an artist who I correspond with occasionally. Much of his work has been for collectible card games and this was the response given:
If these fans are just reworking the art on the physical cards themselves, there's little the artist can do about it. That's an official secondary market resale and beyond their control. If, however, the artwork is being reworked separate from the card and then being sold on its own, that's completely illegal, and those selling such works without the artist's written permission are open to both litigation and prosecution. If that's the case, eBay should be made known of the situation, with cease and desist orders given to the sellers.
Ed Beard is an Illustrator, not an artist. I say that with respect to what he does for a living. Art is something that was and always is rooted in sharing something. An artist is committed to presenting something appealing to an onlooker, be it a lyrical poem, or a painting of grandeur. An illustrator is just a commissioned, in that the basic idea behind the act is to make money, as opposed to making people think
This is a really stupid distinction.
This is not a good reason to bump a thread over 2 years old. Spam warning issued. r~
every card that wotc produced is copyrighted under thier name, not every artist. artist's name is presented there is for the whole world to know who is the artist/ illustrator; who is paid by wotc/ mtg ask them to produce as the art director wanted, not totally the artist/ illustrator original ideas. i believe every artist only have the copyright for his/her original copy of their artwork, not reproduction on every card in this world.
on the other hand, alterers paint directly onto the card, which makes it unique and every piece wont be exactly same, like the original art do on every card. so alterers have their copyright on each card he/ she produced.
however, kudos to artist/ illustrator/ alterers in this world because they made the world colourful with their artworks and many appreciate it and value it
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Their whole argument is based on altered cards being "derivative works," which most courts agree they are not. A "derivative work" is:
This definition is straight out of a federal statute. It clearly contemplates the situation where someone creates a new work that's based off a copyrighted work, and not where someone modifies a legally-produced copy of a copyrighted work.
Admittedly, the Ninth Circuit thought otherwise in the Mirage Editions case, where it said that the words "transformed" or "adapted" may make alterations into "derivative works," thereby offering original artists some ongoing copyright protection.
But most other federal appeals courts have disagreed, most notably the Seventh Circuit in the Lee case, where it said the Ninth Circuit's logic threatened to "establish[ ] through the back door an extraordinarily broad version of authors' moral rights, under which artists may block any modification of their works of which they disapprove."
But WTF do I know? I don't have an "Esq." after my name.
maybe we need to do away if it's legal or not. and just ask the artist if he minds. maybe that will prevent another thing happening like it just did.
ps when i say all this about doing away with the legal part of it. i only mean for personal use only. not selling. for selling you still will need the copyright holders permission
We are not altering the original art and furthermore if other artists pursue this line of thinking - they will be frustrated at the most because there is nothing they can do to stop these kind of actions taken by magicplayers.
Do alter work, Do sell or trade them as alter cards. You are not doing anything wrong if you are selling something yours. The card.
Edward is going to loose a lot of time pursuing this. srsly.:facepalm:
And the entire "not joining the forum" thing - it shows nothing but the lack of respect that Ed has to a well-established community that is the magicplayer community.
I am more concerned about artists that create some memorable artwork (Guay, Avon, Staples to name a few) than those that are merely hired as a "fantasy artist #3" .
Edward thank for your art, and the amazing display of personality. We now know how you really are
URPyromancer ascension RU
lolaphants - the only one card win .deck left in standard UGB
do you think if he joined the forum he would really be treated equaly by all. I think no. there has been way to many people bad mouthing him way before anyone even said. hey lets try to get him on here. I mean why go into a battle knowing you will be bad mouthed and get nothing for it. as for him responding through me. well i can only guess it's his lawyer trying to point out a few things for the record of everything.
a few good points he has brought up are people covering the orginal artist's name and signing there own in the alters. Sure it may not look great on full art cards. but it's disrespecting the orginal artist and claiing you did the fll art yourself.
also todd Lockwood did bring up a good point. what if the altered art looks bad. and you leave his name on the card. who will really know did the alter(unless signed) or truely what the card looks like off hand. sure you can look it up. But when you look at a bad alter you kinda remember hey that card looked bad. maybe think it was just the orginal art that was bad in the first place. who knows. so that affects the orginal artist a bit.
on the other hand if you do a bang up job and leave both the orginal artist name and yours on there. do you think it's fair if someone gives the credit to the oginal artist.(even tho you said it wasn't altered by them(i've seen a lot of people think this way)) personaly i don't see how that's fair to the person who altered it. if you do the work you should get full credit for it.
on a side note who here would get mad if you did a great alter and sell it. then someone comes along further alters your alter even better. then go and sells it for big bucks. would you get a bit mad about this? (yes i've seen this a few times on ebay)
Not me and your argument is kind of silly. If you add value to something you bought from me and benefit from that... Kudos. It's yours and you are free to do with it what you want.
(*Although legally you might owe me money as odd as that seems. Yes I lived in the 9 District at the time to whomever asked about that earlier.)
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I do not at all think that altering cards is wrong. As a matter of fact, I encourage it and think it is beneficial to the MTG community.
However, when people started selling these cards, or more specifically, doing it upon commission to earn a profit without consulting the original artists or WotC, they crossed a line. I know that many people in the altering business use it as a main source of income.
I think a good basis for comparison would be to the Electronica/Techno music genre. Alot of content is created by mixing sampled (or borrowed) music from other musicians. For this to happen (legally) the person or group sampling music has to request permission if it explicitly isn't covered under the creative commons license. Sometimes this even means that royalties end up heading back to the creators of the original sounds. While this may be a pain, the Electronic music industry continues to flourish. I don't think it's unreasonable to request permission from the original artist(s) and WotC if you are intending to sell an altered card for profit.
I think that Mr. Beard approached this in completely the wrong way that has only caused more setbacks on behalf of those who would want to be consulted before having their works altered. Nonetheless, it is fair for them to ask that people require permission to sell altered versions of their works.
I agree with what Mr. Beard has said about young artists and the lack of respect. This post is a perfect example of it. People who could care less about the original piece and start throwing around technicalities like this. Would you really expect an artist to paint every single magic cards within a couple inches. And I also agree with troll like posts about this serious issue being removed from said threads.
I think people should use a little common sense when thinking about the issue. Do I agree with the actions being taken by Mr. Beard? No. But just after reading his email reply above you can tell all he wanted was an ounce of respect from posters and card altering artist. He says that he "might" grant permissionto alter a card. It seems to me all Mr. Beard ever wanted was an email or simply approached about the subject. Does he seem a little sensitive for my tastes? Sure he does. But for someone who has been commisioning cards for WOTC this long if that's what he wants then give it to him.
I'm not the smartest guy out there and my grammar lacks alot but it seems all he ever wanted was a little sympathy and some sign of respect. It seems he has been put on display in a way and I'll admit I got excited when I first found the threads containing this subject. My opinion has changed since yesterday though. I think he should stop the legal debates and I think even card altering artists should approach this subject with a little more respect. Sorry if my opinion didn't add much to the discussion but I needed to say it.
Except instead of being civil he threatens lawsuit and uses a myraid of insults.
Its human nature to respond hostilily(warning I'm tired, this word may be non-existant) to hostile actions.
Since I doubt he has a legal case throwing a tantrumn over something dumb and not affecting him in the slightest is not the way to get an apology.
No offense, but this post means that you've never studied art. Either that or you just said that pretty much every single "artist" in history was actually an "illustrator".
Sorry for the offtopic, BTW.
EDIT: Back on-topic. Seems eBay has been kicking some people out, including suspending card kitty's account for a year. And it seems to come from WotC...
You mean as in me being Mr. Beard?
I want to start making alters myself, so hardly possible. Or maybe I have split personalities, who knows?
Why would I want any of that? It's not like I'd ever want to alter cards.
If you are making unique work on the card, then yes. If you are extending, there is a slim chance you might get it taken down (or something similar...), and if you are, you will be better "protected" if you not only mention the original artist in the auction, but also leave the name on the card. It's lame, but it's more or less because if you do otherwise, it appears that you are taking credit for it.
Besides, the world could use more unique alters.
Art Page
Alters for sale
I don't know about that last part. People pick cards to get altered for a number of reasons and the preexisting art isn't always the main reason. I would say that close to half the cards I have done had art that I, personally, think is ugly.
The is not, and never has been, the quality of the art or the quality of the extension. The issue is the legality of altering and selling cards.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
not very, considering the art was done to make fun of the art director at the time. Though it is kind of funny that the artist who made it is the very same one who is currently the fascist individual who is being a jerk to the MTG fan base.
/my point
Anyway, how is altering a card you legally purchased any different from remixing a song on an album, or modifying software you legally purchased to work on your machine (not licensed, but purchased).
Even without considering legality, I certainly don't consider the altering of IP (music, software, film) to be a moral affront of any kind to the original author.
Fan fiction or doujinshi is made in utmost respect of the original work or property.
It's an inside joke. One of the primary reasons Beard no longer does work for Magic was that he had a falling out with the art director at the time, Jeremy Cranford. If anything, Beard illustrating the card shows he's a good sport about what happened.
I talked about this subject not too long ago with an artist who I correspond with occasionally. Much of his work has been for collectible card games and this was the response given:
If these fans are just reworking the art on the physical cards themselves, there's little the artist can do about it. That's an official secondary market resale and beyond their control. If, however, the artwork is being reworked separate from the card and then being sold on its own, that's completely illegal, and those selling such works without the artist's written permission are open to both litigation and prosecution. If that's the case, eBay should be made known of the situation, with cease and desist orders given to the sellers.
This is a really stupid distinction.
This is not a good reason to bump a thread over 2 years old. Spam warning issued. r~
on the other hand, alterers paint directly onto the card, which makes it unique and every piece wont be exactly same, like the original art do on every card. so alterers have their copyright on each card he/ she produced.
however, kudos to artist/ illustrator/ alterers in this world because they made the world colourful with their artworks and many appreciate it and value it