Rider-Waite tarot card images
Hmm…just noticed that the images used on Wikipedia are from the original deck, which is in the public domain. Which is useful, since I want to use them as part of a book cover, and now I don’t have to pay royalties or seek permissions.
The Rider-Waite tarot deck is the most popular Tarot deck in use today in the English-speaking world (the Tarot de Marseille being the most popular deck in the Latin countries). Over the years it has also been known as the Rider-Waite-Smith, Waite-Smith, Waite-Colman Smith or simply the Rider deck.
The images were drawn by artist Pamela Colman Smith, to the instructions of academic and mystic A. E. Waite, and published by the Rider Company. While the images are deceptively simple, almost child-like, the details and backgrounds hold a wealth of symbolism. The subjects remain close to the earliest decks, but usually have added details. Significantly, Waite had the Christian imagery of older tarot decks’ cards toned down—the “Pope” card became the “Hierophant”, the “Popess” became the “High Priestess”. The minor arcana are also, like the earlier Sola Busca Tarot, fully illustrated with designs created by Pamela Colman Smith. The chief aesthetic objection to this deck is the crude printing of colours in the original: several decks, such as the Universal Waite deck, simply copy the Smith line drawings, but with more sophisticated coloring.
Happy day.
I’m not so sure I’d bet on that. US Games Systems still claims copyright and is willing to enforce it.
I was under the impression that the cards themselves are under copyright, but the images from the cards are what are in the public domain. Copyright law gets annoyingly complex in these situations. I’m not a lawyer, though, so I can only go by what I have found in my research.