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A Diana Stamp
In Breach of Copyright
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DIANA'S LIFE was celebrated and her death mourned by the issue
of commemorative stamps all around the world. Many of these were
produced by specialist companies on behalf of smaller countries
who wished merely to take a fraction of the consequent profits
in return for the licensed use of their national name. |
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The company we believe to have designed this stamp on behalf of
the francophone République du Tchad has refused to acknowledge
it, and the Tchad Embassy in Paris has not responded to our enquiries. |
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So why are we interested?
In the production of a website such as this, we face a continuing
battle to balance the quality of the graphics with the need to
keep the files small (to enable fast downloads), and during one
series of experiments, while attempting to reduce file size by
reducing the number of its colours, we unintentionally uploaded
two files in which some silver was reproduced as gold. Here they
are. |
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The frets in the second and third quarters should be gold, of
course, but the escallops on the bend should be silver.
The error was quickly recognised and corrected. (Ignore the darker
red and whitened silver ~ the experiments were continuing ~ but
note that the frets in the hatchment were thickened.) |
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Now ~ back to the stamp! |
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The designer took the hatchment design with the golden escallops
on the bend and the thinner frets in the second and third quarters,
placed it within the lozenge's border fleury (a Pegasus Armorie
design) used in the other illustration, and then superimposed
the whole on a black hatchment shape.
Under a magnifying glass it is easy to see the blocky edges of
the fleury leaves, for the .gif file he downloaded and copied
was at 72ppi. |
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At higher resolution the lozenge's border fleury should look more
like this.
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This has raised some interesting questions. Arms as old as Earl
Spencer's are not protected by any copyright, but any specific
depiction of them (especially when incorrect) may have protection
claimed in the usual way. (The verbal description of arms is their
blazon; when they are depicted they are said to be emblazoned.) Notwithstanding this however, the border fleury designed by
the artists of Pegasus Armorie, used in many of their paintings
of ladies' arms, is most assuredly protected by copyright.
If any or our philatelist readers should know which company designed
this stamp for the République du Tchad, we should be grateful
for their information. |
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Spencers and Despencers
The Baronage Home Page
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110499 |
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