Are printed proxies legal? - Magic General - Magic Fundamentals - MTG Salvation Forums (2024)

Quote from Demonologo Uriel »

Legally there's nothing wrong with it however the cards can't be used in any sanctioned tournament.

Sadly it's not like this the story, look the link above. Also, why do you think co*ckatrice all get those legal issues from WotC in these years?

There's a pretty big difference between a program like co*ckatrice and someone printing out proxies for a local unsanctioned event. The former is large-scale copyright infringement and the latter is just an unsanctioned event that's not worth going after from Wizards' point of view. While it may not be allowed by Wizards, it's one of those things that's widely accepted enough in the community that you're really not in any danger for playing in proxy events as long as you're not trying to buy or sell proxies or whatever.

My local store has monthly Proxy Legacy tournaments.. Its basically the only way anyone can even play legacy here. It is a bit too hard to get enough players for a tournament otherwise.

I have had some friends make proxies and traded them for real cards. Some proxied full art foil shocklands for an Ajani

Quote from Demonologo Uriel »

There's a pretty big difference between a program like co*ckatrice and someone printing out proxies for a local unsanctioned event.

Please tell me where it's written that it's different. Because in both cases, people just replicate the Wizards copyrighted/trademarked elements (symbols of mana, art, etc.) without Wizard permission and that only Wizard got the right to possess. The only difference it's that co*ckatrice cards are digital while LGS proxies are papermade, but from a strictly legal viewpoint, it's the same thing. I quote co*ckatrice because it wasn't making profit by his program selling the digital cards to the players, and still get sued by WotC.

Where is it written down? No where but it is pretty much basic economies of scale. It is not worth the money WOTC would have to spend chasing after every player that has scribbled Force of Will on an Island so they don't bother. co*ckatrice/MWS and now Hex are all much larger targets so it is much more likely that they are going to get a decent return on the amount of money they have to spend bringing the cases so they go after them.

Quote from MTGTCG »

I play casually and decided to print black and white copies of cards in a deck I made. Is it legal to play with these cards?

Legally, from the perspective of the law, yes. As long as they aren't being used in any sanctioned event or tournament. Using them at ANY sanctioned event, tournament, FNM, etc will automatically disqualify you from the tournament and get you kicked out of the venue you are playing at. If you're casually playing with friends, it's perfectly fine. I wouldn't recommend using them at any game store though. Store owners would much rather gamers buy product directly from them instead of using the store as strictly a space to game at.

Personally, I use printed proxies to test out my decks before I actually spend money on purchasing said cards. Most times, I don't even bother printing out the proxies because they themselves cost me money to produce (printing paper, ink, etc). I simply use other cards that I already own to represent the cards i'm proxying and use little tabs that say what card I'm playing in conjunction with looking up cards on the internet in case I or my opponent don't know what a card does.

However, printing proxies is ILLEGAL if you try to sell the proxies for profit. That's called "counterfeiting," and it's a HUGE problem in the Magic community right now.

Of course wizards is going to use language on their website that discourages people from printing proxies and encourages them to buy real cards. Wizards wants to sell cards. Its pretty telling, however, that they don't cite to any of these supposed national and international laws wed be violating by printing homemade proxies for non-sanctioned events. Also, magiccards.info is a well-known, widely used site with an obvious print proxy feature. If home printing was actually illegal, why wouldn't wizards send them a cease and desist? Because home printing proxies is not illegal.

Even if it were "illegal," it would be illegal in the way that opens you up to getting sued, not that gets you fined or sent to jail, and for that wizards would have to show damages. Good luck proving damages when someone prints four copies of a card that wizards doesn't even produce anymore and is only available on the secondary market. Those wizards employees who told you otherwise were either just blindly following the company line or being willfully misleading.

TL;DR - printing proxies for home or casual use is fine, just don't sell/trade them and you can't use them in sanctioned events. Proxying for casual use and testing is hugely widespread, and no one has ever gotten in trouble for it.

Quote from Demonologo Uriel »

The mana symbols, tap symbol and Magic: the Gathering logo are all proprietary to Wizards of the Coast. Additionally, all individual cards are protected under trademark and copyright laws, including art elements and the card backs. Making reproductions of the art images and card faces of Magic cards is an infringement of our rights and is prohibited. The use of this art and images requires the express permission from Wizards of the Coast. Without this permission, scanning and posting and otherwise distributing these images violates the law. Even photocopying them to use as a “proxy” for personal use is illegal and violates our intellectual property rights.[/i]
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/209

Note how they phrase this, and it's clear that they'll never go after home use proxy makers. They say that "scanning, posting, and otherwise distributing" violates copyright law (and isn't what the OP is asking about - this would probably enable them to go after magiccards.info though if they really wanted), and then say that printing for personal use only "violates our intellectual property rights" - which would result in a civil claim, where, again, they have to show damages which would be impossible. It's like it's technically "illegal" to print out a piece of art or a copyrighted photograph and hang it on the wall at my house - does it violate a copyright? Sure, but there's no damage to the entity that holds the copyright so they can never sue you. Anyone telling you that you can get in trouble for home use, or even non-sanctioned event use proxies is misinformed or actively misleading you - the legal bill wizards would incur from going after an individual home proxy user would be orders of magnitude greater than any damage they could show assuming they could even show any.

I just spent a few hours speaking to an Intellectual Property lawyer about exactly this (among other things). Here's what he had to say about it.

As stated, no you're probably not going to get into trouble.

Just to clear a few things up though, it is absolutely illegal in most countries including the US. Damages are only one consideration of fair use. Even if you never make money on it and WotC doesn't lose money on it, it's still against federal law. They could sue you and probably win. They don't want to do this for several reasons. They really aren't losing money on it and suing people is expensive. And suing a bunch of kids for making low-quality copies of trading cards would be an absolute PR disaster and alienate lots of players. So they turn a blind eye to it as long as you're not selling them.

Fair use primarily cares about why you are reproducing someone else's property. Illustration, education, and parody are all reasonable answers. "Because I didn't want to have to pay for it," isn't a reasonable answer.

Its "illegal" but nobody will care and nobody will sue you anyway / no judge would ever let that go to court, police and any other will laugh about it aswell.

BUT, if WotC finds out you actual allow big tournaments with "lots" (or only) proxy cards, they might really start to care and remove your FNM status, which sucks.

BUT, if a store allows some proxies for a tournament, everyone is ok with that, as it increases the players, and you limit the amount of actual proxies to something feasable (say 5-10 cards).

Quote from TheOnlyOne652089 »

Its "illegal" but nobody will care and nobody will sue you anyway / no judge would ever let that go to court, police and any other will laugh about it aswell.

BUT, if WotC finds out you actual allow big tournaments with "lots" (or only) proxy cards, they might really start to care and remove your FNM status, which sucks.

BUT, if a store allows some proxies for a tournament, everyone is ok with that, as it increases the players, and you limit the amount of actual proxies to something feasable (say 5-10 cards).

I strongly recommend against following this specific advice. Regardless of the legality of using proxies, it is definitely true that WotC will treat it as an infraction to allow even a single proxy card in a sanctioned tournament, even including "casual" tournaments like FNM. Anyone who finds out about this practice could report such a store to the DCI.

Quote from KamikazeArchon »

If you are seriously concerned about the legality of an action, there is only one way to find out if it's legal: contact a lawyer in your jurisdiction. MTGS is not a source of legal advice, and you should not rely on the assurances of anyone here either in favor of or against a particular course of action. A number of lawyers even provide free consultations, which may be sufficient to answer your questions.

I'd love to see the look on that lawyer's face when he gets a consult call for this.

As stated printing proxies of any kind is as illegal as pirating other content like movies or music. It is illegal, and you could get in trouble for it; however, the chances of that happening are astronomically low.

Quote from DLH »

I'd love to see the look on that lawyer's face when he gets a consult call for this.

As stated printing proxies of any kind is as illegal as pirating other content like movies or music. It is illegal, and you could get in trouble for it; however, the chances of that happening are astronomically low.

Hes is right, they CAN punish the store, but seriously, why should they ?

As i said, its REALLY common to have tournaments, especially type 1 or legacy ones with proxy cards, as otherwise you wont even get a tournament at all, simply because players dont have the cards (and its silly to no end if a bunch have actual decks, and the rest plays fillers, that not cool at all).

So, its in everyones best interest to allow proxies, OFCOURSE they dont officially, and if someone is serious enough to make it a problem, they will be forced to act, but also, who the hell should do that ?

No sane person will report a store for proxy cards, at least not if its a sane number (as i said 5-10 is quite common number for proxy cards, which is often enough to solve the problem for a bunch stupid expensive cards you want/need to play).

If the store still puts in enough tournaments and clearly sells product, it should be a no brainer (and i have NEVER seen a store get any trouble for it, no where, never in more than 15 years, they just wont allow proxies in any big event, say Grand Prix, PTQ, and anything above ; but on a store level, the important part is to actual get player to play).