Legalities 2

[artbygail]

studiolr, In your last message the url you posted was so long, it made my neck stret..ch across the page, so I am beginning a new Legalities 2. bone*diva mentioned my concerns in legalities 1, here they are.. ATC means Artist Trading Cards, and there is an international group of artists on website already with that title who only trade and never sell. They arrange trading sessions in all areas so they can meet other artists and trade cards. I see several art galleries across country who open their doors several times a month for trading card enthusiasts to mingle and their links are posted on that site. This is a great way to collect cards and meet international artists as well. But......since our goal is to go commercial with artist cards, my personal opinion is that we should not interfere with the artist trading card system already in place internationally. I feel we need a uniform listing name to describe these cards if we propose to sell them so the collectors see it at a glance, leaving out the word "trading" as it would not apply, even though they could be traded if so desired. eg: Artists Offerings, AO.......Artist Art Cards, AAC... or whatever ? ? This would depend upon whether or not the initials already stand for something else. We can then put our own personal handle within the contents of the card itself. This is just my humble opinion, let us hear your thoughts. Why not all of us phone up our nearest gallery or trading card store and do some enquiries?

[bone*diva]

Personally, I feel that using the word "Trading" is integral to our acquiring exposure in the Trading Card World. They certainly are "Trading Cards" as are Sports cards. It seems that, on the sites I've vistied, that ATC is an acronym for Artist Trading Cards. I'm thinking that we should use Art Trading Cards. If you do a search through ebay for "art trading cards" - you will find other listings and these listings fall under: Collectibles > Trading Cards > Sci-Fi, Fantasy > Other Sci-Fi So - the word "Trading" seems to be an industry term and I don't believe can affect the term that Artists have selected to represent their offerings.

[bone*diva]

If anyone has any legal experience - or a connection in law - it would be great if you could ask a few questions!

[bone*diva]

I just ran a google search for "Art Trading Cards" (not "Artist Trading Cards) ....here is a site to use as an example: http://www.lastgasp.com/d/24018/ And another: http://ehoney.ca/trading/one.htm http://www.ausxip.com/xenashop/arttradingcards/ Now, read this one: http://home.att.net/~ksg-73/ So it seems that there are others who have come up with these as well.....and it doesn't seem that using "Art Trading Cards" should be a problem.

[kerobinsonart]

First, let me say...I have NO legal expetise! But, I have to agree w/ BoneDiva. Trading is an established term that people already recognize and use. This is EXACTLY descriptive of what we want to produce. Karen.

[dream_artist_1]

I noticed at the Cedarwood site that it says that the non-sale, only trade idea is a "convention". That is not a legality. But the Art Trading Cards name may be trademarked. (Although it is quite expensive to trademark something). Artist(s) Trading Cards wouldn't be trademarked though. Maybe we could develop two categories. One of printed, limited editions and one of originals. I have been doing small collages on boxes and pins lately and I would like to try doing some tiny collage cards. I guess I could do the collage then photograph it and make it into trading cards, though. Patricia

[artbygail]

Dream_artist, Could you please provide a link to the page at Cedarwood website where you found that information. If the url is very long, we don't want it to expand this page, so could you please take the url to http://tinyurl.com/create.php and make it smaller. Looking forward to reading this. Thank you.

[studiolr]

gaylia, sorry my url stretched out the post, but if you visit the trading card section and put in the keyword art, you will see that commercial art trading cards have been around for many years with out causing any sort of a conflict with the artist traded ATCs. As far as being consistent in what we call them and using similar keywords, I don't see that as being necessary, we are not creating the concept of art trading cards on eBay, they are already here. In fact it's the larger collector base that draws my attention with the possibility of creating crossover from the trading card afficionados who love art to seeing original art as well. My feeling on this is while I want to learn together, what we do with that information, how we adapt it to our art and schedules may come out differently. Maybe Lisa can send Greg an invite but he's been pretty busy so I'm not sure when we'd hear from him, but this is something that has been done by other artists commercially for many years. I am certain that artists like Frazetta, Elvgren, Olivia de Beradinis, etc. would have been the ones to be filed against if there was cause for action against artists creating art trading cards. I remember older friends with some of these cards a long time ago so while this is new to us, it is not brand new. Lisa R.

[dream_artist_1]

I'm sorry, I thought it said Cedarwood but it was cedarseed. http://www.cedarseed.com

[bone*diva]

My guess is that the term "Art Trading Cards" is a very loose term....Art being used as a description of these particular trading cards. I think that Lisa is right - that the terminology may not be the most important part....that the concept of these cards already exists and that we will each adapt this idea to suit our own vision of the cards. Lisa - would you be willing to get ahold of Greg and invite him to our group? I know he's very busy - but if he just read this particular thread and gave us some thoughts and ideas - it would help. Maybe you can bribe him....! I'm willing to throw a few cards his way!

[eclectic*arts]

I posted this in the first legalities thread because I hadn't reached this one yet, so in case that one is ignored I'll repost; I just checked the box that my Micheal Whelan cards came in (yes, I bought that many of them *the shame*) to see what they called them. They are called "Collector Cards". I bought these years ago, before I had heard of ATCs. Since nobody owns the term Artist (or Artist's) Trading Cards, then it should fall under Free Use. But if we want to be careful we could just call them Artist's Collector Cards or something. I don't think it really matters that much from a legal standpoint unless it's been trademarked, and I'm pretty sure it hasn't.

[kyrn]

Nobody's got the words "trading card" or "collectable cards" trademarked. That's just a general name for what they are. Every card game out there is called a "collectable card game" or CCG.

[fullwoodcreek]

if you wanted it to be different than the artist trading cards that are just traded and make it more generalized to designate that they are for all art collectors,and not just for artists to collect you could just use "Art Collector Cards". Whatever yall decide will be cool with me! Just remember the old saying, if anybody tries to sue...you can't get blood from a turnip. But I'm with kyrn, I dont think anyone can claim those terms.