If you are making a dvd or writing a book and want to include a routine you really like should you get permission from the owner/creator of the routine before you use it? Just curious how some of you feel.

What does your gut say?

Get their permission! Ask them yourself! Buy them dinner and show them what you intend to do. Give them time to think about it.

I believe you knew the right answer already because you took the time to ask your question.

Do the right thing.

Does the same rule apply to everybody? What if you are a well known magician? Could you use something without permission then? What if you want to use something and can't find the inventor?

Keep asking... someone will eventually put you on the right track.

Can't find the inventor?

Try harder. Ask for help.

There are plenty of people that know plenty of people, especially at this site. We must listen to our gut feelings and do the right thing.

Say if the table's turned and you are the inventor, won't you be upset if the other person did not ask you for your permission? If at first attempt, you can't find the creator, try again and again. It's the only way. BTW, nice new avatar, Patrick!

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is in relation to someone and something specific, but I won't speculate as to what.

My take on the issue?

Was the effect previously published? Is the routine still available for sale? Do you give credit to the person who invented it?

If the inventor has previously offered it to the community, is no longer seeking to make any profit from it, and is properly credited in the new release, I think there's a strong argument that you've covered your moral obligation. If all the above is true, you haven't harmed him financially nor have you "muddied" the credits. Asking permission in this case seems much closer to a courtesy than an imperative. It's still a good thing to do, but if you can't find the guy, I wouldn't break your back over it.

DUH.

Of course they should get permission. I believe there are exceptions though, maybe you could improve upon the trick itself?

But then again when you think about it, life is that way. If people didn't use other peoples inventions where would we be.

Think about it. If Microsoft didn't use Apples GUI as an interface there would be no Windows. If no one improved Bell's telephone we'd be using older technology, if no one improved the balducci levitation there would be no elevator or ALIUN.

Life is like that. You make something and people will copy it. You can't expect to monopolize it forever but then again it's the best thing to show appreciation and credit for whatever was invented. So here's another question, what if there is no possible way to get a hold of the inventor, then what?

It wasn't Apple's GUI. It belonged to Xerox. The lawsuit was quite specific.

The correct thing to do is this:

If an item is still in active sales, you absolutely MUST get permission from whoever owns the trick and give credit. But you MUST get permission. It doesn't matter whether you make an improvement or not. If you are basing an item on someone else's work, give credit. Otherwise, it is plagiarism.

If the author is deceased, then you still should give credit. You should, if possible, get permission from the author's estate. Example: Brett Sherwood decided to put out a set of cups that were engraved. The design was not the same as the design on Vernon's cups, but since the Vernon cups were the best known ones, he got permission and approval from the Vernon estate to issue the cups. This was a very smart move on his part. It gave him respectability, which some magicians seem to lack.

You can't monopolize anything forever, but current copyright law says you can own it until 70 years after your death. That's long enough for most of us. This means your estate and their descendants can enjoy the fruits of your labors.

If you decide to publish or do a video of something that is based on someone else's work, and it is impossible to get hold of the originator, then you must at least give credit. However, you will find that the best way to get an originator to show up is to publish something. Within about 90 days, the fellow who originated it will call on you.

With communications as they are these days, it is very difficult to imagine a scenario in which you could not get in touch with an originator if you tried hard enough. I got permission from the author of a book on cups and balls to do a translation of it. He lives in Germany, is in his 80's, and has no computer. It took me all of an hour to find his telephone number.

Some other people can be hard to find. But it's more than just a courtesy to contact them. It is an obligation.

My unsolicited advice -- if you can't contact an author, and you MUST teach the routine based on his piece, publish and credit, but take copious notes of all attempts to locate the author.

http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/trainin......main.htm

This chart, which is available in different forms all over the internet, has a lot of good copyright information in a pretty accessible form. I only posted it because there's a lot of stuff that falls under "public domain", whether the original author is still alive or not.

Paul

That's true. One crucial thing is whether the item was ever copyrighted in the first place. If it was published before a certain date, and there was no copyright in place, then it may be in the public domain. I say "may" be, because copyrights have been restored when they never existed before. For example, there is the famous "Tom Dooley" case.

In 1947, John and Alan Lomax published a book called Best Loved American Folk Songs. In this book, there was a song called "Tom Dooley," which the Kingston Trio recorded in 1957. Because the information in the book stated that it was a very old song, they figured it was traditional, and therefore in the public domain. Then Frank Warner, the fellow that Alan Lomax had collected it from stepped forward, after the KT had sold a couple of million copies, and he asked for his royalties. The KT's attorney stated that Frank had told Alan it was an old song. But Frank claimed he had written it. They questioned Frank about the statement he'd made to Alan Lomax. His reply, "I lied."

He won the case and made a lot of money, in spite of the fact that he had not copyrighted the song. This case stood the publishing world on its ear.

You have to get permision to publish an effect. Especially if it's copyrighted. Can you say lawsuit?

Effects can't be copyrighted. I can say "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted".

That's not completely true. Effects can be copyrighted. The copyright will not be valid in most cases.

It would be pretty stupid to publish anything still under copyright without permission. Magic books, pamphlets, and DVDs are such a small niche market that it would be hard to prove much actual damage, but punative damages can be very great.

You would be putting yourself in a very vulnerable position by doing such a thing, and there would be nothing really to gain.

They certainly can. However, in recent years, basically all that the courts have done when people have done due diligence is award royalty payments based on the sales over the past three years. That is actually a statutory limitation.

A number of American publishers got caught with egg on their face when the restoration of copyrights act went into effect in 1996, along with the Uruguay accord. Up until then, the US did not recognize copyrights from the iron curtain countries. So the works of Kabalevsky, Bartok and others were in the public domain. After 1996, people who had published these items had to pay back royalties on them and then negotiate for the right to publish in the US.

I do not believe anyone has to ask this question!!! Why would you not ask permission to use someone else's creation? Who cares about the copyright. If you didn't come up with it, you need to get an okay from the creator. It's just the right thing to do. Come on, get real.

Mark

One thing that really bothers me is when people compare magic secrets to science experiments, art techniques, CGI effects and others. They think that using someone else's idea is fine. Not when it comes to magic secrets. Publishing an idea that doesn't belong to you or using it for a paid performance is wrong.
Doing the right thing can also create many friendships that will have more value than that of a sale.

Mark:

Most of us, myself included, feel exactly this way. Anything I have posted to indicate that it may be legal to do so, certainly was not done so to imply that it was right.

There is a big difference between legal and ethical. There is a fellow who used to produce very good mental effects. He retired from business about a decade ago, and a fellow who shall remain nameless purchased the rights to his products from him. Later the retiree sold the name of his business and the rights to the same products to another fellow. This has caused a lot of friction in the business. It's going to take a long time to straighten that one out.

Another similar situation is the one where a manufacturer in the Rio Grande valley purchased the rights to some very famous brass products from the estate of the inventor of them. He has been producing very high quality versions of them for years. Now someone else has shipped them overseas, where they are being churned out by the thousands in versions that often do not work. Since these items are not patented, it's legal. But it certainly isn't moral.

And that is a situation that is almost exactly the same as the one this topic is discussing.