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Playing Card Chat ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦ => Design & Development => Topic started by: The London magician on August 19, 2015, 10:24:04 AM

Title: Card faces
Post by: The London magician on August 19, 2015, 10:24:04 AM

Hi guys,

Everyone keeps saying that the card faces of the USPCC are in the public domain, but where?

If i chose to use the standard faces, but with a few alterations, where would I find the faces?

Thanks,

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: Don Boyer on August 19, 2015, 02:10:00 PM

Quote from: The London magician on August 19, 2015, 10:24:04 AM

Hi guys,

Everyone keeps saying that the card faces of the USPCC are in the public domain, but where?

If i chose to use the standard faces, but with a few alterations, where would I find the faces?

Thanks,

The non-unique elements of all standard playing card decks are considered uncopyrightable (in most countries) for much the same reasons that you can't copyright the alphabet, make a generic, unstylized letter alone your trademark or patent the fork - too much "prior art" predates the work by hundreds of years.  People try to copyright fonts a lot, but what they're actually copyrighting is the digital file used to create the font on your computer - that's copyrightable, but the letter designs themselves aren't, so if you went to the trouble of writing code to reproduce the letters in the same manner but using original programming to do so, you're in the clear.  Fonts themselves can't be copyrighted - again, it's copyrighting the alphabet, unless your "font" consists of wholly-unique symbols not used in any language, in which case, not a lot of people will find a good use for it.

Where would you find the faces?  Buy a pack of playing cards.  There are people selling the faces as digital files online and some give them away for free, but the faces themselves can be obtained from any pre-existing example.

Now, notice that I said the "non-unique" elements are uncopyrightable.  Unique elements of a deck would be (in most cases) the back design, the jokers and the Ace of Spades.  Attempt to use those elements and you can expect at some point to hear from a lawyer, depending on the scope and breadth of your project.  A lone magician making handmade gaffs for his own use will be unlikely to be buried under litigation, but a deck designer making a deck that uses someone else's unique trademarks will be far more likely to hear from the trademark holder, especially as to defend a trademark, you have to prevent "dilution" by allowing even altered versions in the marketplace, unless they're altered to the point of becoming something wholly unique themselves.  If they're still recognizable as the trademark to some degree, there may be grounds to sue.

It's because of that "dilution" clause in trademark law that USPC no longer allows people to make altered versions of their older back designs, their unique Aces of Spades or their jokers.  Most of their classic art was created prior to 1923 - in the US, all works older than 1923 (and some works made since then) are in the public domain and thus have no copyright, but laws covering trademarks are different - trademarks can be renewed indefinitely, as long as they're registered on a regular basis and the registration doesn't lapse.  But it's that whole "dilution" thing - you can't let people alter your trademark, or it becomes unprotectable as a trademark - it no longer is uniquely identified with your products alone and appears elsewhere in the marketplace.

Two new card backs were made by USPC specifically to allow magicians to make altered versions of a card back - the Mandolin Back (809) and the Maiden Back (813) are similar to the Rider Back, enough so that most spectators won't tell the difference if the cards were included in a Rider Back deck, but different enough from the Rider Back to be copyrightable (and copyrighted) as unique, protected designs.  Both backs were developed with the aid of magicians and magic shop owners - I'm not entirely clear on who holds the copyrights, but I think that USPC may be licensing out rights to them, because in each case, if you want to make gaffs in that design, there's a specific company you need to approach to do the work, and it's not USPC.  I think that the Mandolin Back is held by an associate of Richard Turner's while the Maiden Back is a creation of Meir Yedid Magic.  To my knowledge, the Mandolin Back was developed in conjunction with USPC while the Maiden Back was developed independently of USPC by Meir Yedid as a competing product to the Mandolin Back (in my opinion, it's the better-looking of the two and closer to the original).  Those two back designs can be altered any way you wish, for the right price, and will be under copyright for perhaps a century or longer under current copyright regulations in the US - which keep extending the length of a copyright ad infinitum over time, it would seem.  Certain American companies are loathe to allow their works (coughDISNEYcough) to enter public domain - were it not for the most recent extension, created by Congressman Sonny Bono before his untimely death, "Steamboat Willie" (and by extension, Mickey Mouse) would be in the public domain...

Of course, nothing on this green Earth stops you from making another similar-but-unique design of your own as a substitute for gaffs to be used in Rider Back decks, or even decks with that design, for that matter.

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: The London magician on August 20, 2015, 03:59:18 AM

Thanks for all the info Don!

I was referring more to the court cards and the spot cards rather than the back design. What I would want to do is make the reds darker and on the court cards use a different colour configuration to the standard one. This could be illegal, but I'm not sure.

Thanks again

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: Don Boyer on August 21, 2015, 05:57:01 PM

Quote from: The London magician on August 20, 2015, 03:59:18 AM

Thanks for all the info Don!

I was referring more to the court cards and the spot cards rather than the back design. What I would want to do is make the reds darker and on the court cards use a different colour configuration to the standard one. This could be illegal, but I'm not sure.

Thanks again

I know you were talking about faces, but it was all relevant, being covered under the same rules.

Standard faces can be tweaked any which way you please - they are not protected by copyright and can't be trademarked.  The only unique elements of a deck's faces that are protected are the unique Aces of Spades and jokers that most name-brand decks use.  In most such cases, they're protected as trademarks.  In generic dollar-store decks, you may find generic Ace of Spades and joker designs, but if you're making a unique deck, you'll probably want to make these elements unique in some way yourself.

Darker reds are commonly found on decks made for casinos - and decks modeled after decks made for casinos.  The "casino red" came into being because as casinos started incorporating video surveillance technology in the early days, the typical bright red ink of a standard deck appeared as a pale gray on a black-and-white screen.  Making the red darker reduced the contrast from black, but it also made it more clearly visible.  Even as cameras upgraded to color over time, the darker red was still easier to see clearly, and by the time this upgrade started taking place, players had become accustomed to using the cards with the darker reds (I personally find them easier on the eyes, though someone with visual contrast problems might prefer the brighter reds to better differentiate them from black).

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: The London magician on August 25, 2015, 07:38:23 AM

Thanks again Don

Now it's time for the details! Where can I find the files? Are they on the internet?

Thanks

Alex

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: Don Boyer on August 25, 2015, 11:21:27 AM

Quote from: The London magician on August 25, 2015, 07:38:23 AM

Thanks again Don

Now it's time for the details! Where can I find the files? Are they on the internet?

Thanks

Alex

Ah, everyone - please remember: GOOGLE is your FRIEND!

A quick keyword search for "standard playing cards faces files" turned up a few pages that had card files - for on-screen use in videogames, mostly, but there was this:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/vector-cards/

Vector graphics files are infinitely scalable, allowing you to scale them as large or small as you wish.  These are made from a scan of a standard deck, retraced and cleaned up for print-quality use.

If it exists online, not in the deep web, and was meant to be found, Google usually can find it.

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: The London magician on August 26, 2015, 12:53:11 PM

Thanks! This is exactly what I have been looking for!

Just to check, I am allowed to do whatever I want with the card faces and I won't be penalised by uspcc?

Thanks!

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: fireshaper on August 26, 2015, 08:42:07 PM

Quote from: The London magician on August 26, 2015, 12:53:11 PM

Just to check, I am allowed to do whatever I want with the card faces and I won't be penalised by uspcc?

Yes, they are in the public domain. You can draw horns, fangs, and a tail on them for all USPCC cares. Just don't use their card backs, Jokers, or Ace of Spades.

Title: Re: Card faces
Post by: Don Boyer on August 26, 2015, 10:23:48 PM

Quote from: fireshaper on August 26, 2015, 08:42:07 PM

Quote from: The London magician on August 26, 2015, 12:53:11 PM

Just to check, I am allowed to do whatever I want with the card faces and I won't be penalised by uspcc?

Yes, they are in the public domain. You can draw horns, fangs, and a tail on them for all USPCC cares. Just don't use their card backs, Jokers, or Ace of Spades.

Their unique designs (the backs, Jokers and Aces of Spades) can be protected by trademark (and copyright if they're relatively new), but the other faces of playing cards made by USPC or pretty much any other deck by any other company can't be copyrighted or trademarked or patented.  Prior art on the general design goes back a handful of centuries, so one individual or company can claim unique rights to them in any way.

Now, if someone makes a custom deck, the same holds true - sort of.  The card designs are indeed unprotectable, but the artwork separated from a playing card can be copyrighted.  I think!  I'm pretty sure, though I'm no IP lawyer.

Unique deck designs are another matter - for example, if you created a new game using unique card faces, you can protect them for a period of time under copyright, and indefinitely under trademark (though I'm not sure the entire thing can be just "blanket-trademarked," as it would render copyright moot).  Copyright will certainly outlast the lifespan of the creator by decades.  Think of games such as Rook, Uno, Mille Bornes, Pokemon, Magic: the Gathering, etc.

Rook is sort of borderline, but it's interesting how it developed - the creator was looking for an alternative to standard playing cards, one that was "playable" but had no connections to gambling, vice and cartomancy, as they were objectionable on religious grounds.  So, they took the French tarot deck, drop all the trumps except for the Fool (now remade as the Rook) and replaced the suits symbols with unique colors and courts with numeric values 11 through 14.  Damned similar to the original and to a standard deck, but different enough for Mennonites to feel comfortable playing with them!  No longer under copyright (it was created in 1906), though it almost certainly was copyrighted when it was new.