Copyright and terms of use.

Conal's Corner is not affiliated with the Society for Creative Anachronism, inc. (SCA) or any Branch or Kingdom of the SCA. The SCA heraldic device, as well as the heraldic devices of its subordinate kingdoms and branches are registered to The Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc.

In general, armorial bearings (Coats of arms, devices, badges, and achievments) cannot be copyrighted or trademarked. U.S. courts have consistently held that copyright to a work of art subsists only in the specific rendering, not to the general idea of what is depicted. An artist may hold the copyright to a painting of a yellow shield with a purple falcon on it, but this does not prevent another artist from painting the same scene in a different style.

Additionally, the fields, field treatments, ordinaries, and subordinaries as well as most of the charges used in heraldry are either too generic to be copyrighted by themselves, or are of a specific stylized form that has been used "since antiquity" and are considered to be in the public domain.

Thus, while a specific emblazonment (drawing) of a coat of arms may be copyrighted, that will not prevent another artist from emblazoning the same arms with a different shape of shield, a different rendering of any animals or items in the design, changing the helm, changing the mantling, or any other alteration that a court might find substantial enough to constitute a new work of art. Even a minor difference might suffice in the eyes of a court.

It has been suggested that the blazon of an armorial bearing could be copyrighted. however, copyright laws are designed to protect new creative work, and the courts have ruled that a description of a creative work is not necessarily creative in itself. Moreover, there is sufficient flexibility in how arms are blazoned that it would be easy to evade any protection offered by asserting copyright in the blazon.

Therefore, while armorial bearings themselves cannot be copyrighted, The images (emblazons) of all armorial bearings on this site are copyright © 2007-2024 by William J. Knight and are subject to legal protection worldwide.

Members of the Society for Creative Anachronism are free to display, copy and distribute these images for non-commercial purposes, including displaying these images on websites (a link back to this site would would be appreciated), and on promotional materials (both printed and electronic.)

Specifically prohibited is reselling of these images or their reproduction for use on items for sale for profit (including but not limited to prints, tee-shirts, badges, collectibles, etc.).

Please do not link directly to the images on this site. Not only does this constitute Bandwidth Theft, but the image locations are subject to change, and will result in broken links for you.

Please contact to request copies of the images in different formats or resolutions.

All artwork on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.