I agree both parties should be heard from before anyone makes any judgements and I too want to think both had good intent. Well said Jonathon.
Peace Beth

I would like to point out that so far, our offer still stands.

We do not legally owe Mr. Bush anything.

His document was out of copyright and out of print for thirty years.

Anyone can publish it at any time. Legally no credit needs to be given for anything taken from it. Doug Bush has no claim of ownership at all. It is in a legal sense, valueless.

We believe that our community should have a different standard than that provided simply by the laws of copyright, patent, and trademark. We felt that it was important to give full credit to Mr. Bush for his work, and to look for him and try to give him some money for his contribution. We felt that $2000 was more than generous. But it is a gift, not a payment.

Our position is totally the opposite of the one taken by Steve Pellegrino in his attack on me. According to him, we should only hold the members of the magic community to the standard of the law. According to Mr. Pellegrino, we would be fine just to take the routine and publish it without credit or payment.

We do not accept that argument. We believe that crediting of work is important to the history of magic, and we believe that magicians should try to show proper respect to those who have contributed to the art.

This is rapidly becoming a minority position because of the pathetic attempts by Mr. Pellegrino and others to justify another standard by muddying the waters and attacking whomever they can who upholds these community standards of "hypocrisy" in order to justify the lowering of those same standards.

Unless Mr. Bush can somehow prove that he has a valid copyright on the document in question, which would be next to impossible, he does not have a side in the argument. He hasn't done anything, he isn't accused of anything. He doesn't have any argument to make.

Had he planned to ever republish his work, he should have made the proper arrangements to protect it. He did not. Anyone can publish his pamphlet at this point and still can. They can sell it for less than we can, since we have always intended to pay for it whether Doug Bush owned the rights or not. We do not owe him anything legally.

We have offered him a gift out of respect, and so far he has thrown it back in our faces and accused us of theft.

Please don't get us wrong. We respect his work and his contribution, but he does not have a legal leg to stand on. What we are offering is simply a gift out of respect.

What the bloggers want to do is to tear down the very framework of our community's ethics in support of those manufacturers and dealers who do not share our traditional values.

These vultures want to lump our behavior with that of those who come to market with clones and rip-offs of products still being sold by the originators, without credit or recompense.

Do you not see any difference?

The right question is are we generous enough or respectful enough? Are we offering enough of a gift? Maybe, maybe not.

But we have and continued to have a standard that recognizes a kind of ethical behavior that we feel our community should hold to. We come to that community with our side of things because we care what that community thinks of our standards. We want you to decide for yourselves whether our behavior or that recommended by our detractors is the one we should hold to in the community.

Before I start I want to say I do not know & have never spoken to Mr. Haydn and have never performed any version of the Shell Game.

This is just crazy.

If Whit and Bob did not include the routine in question it probably would have been lost forever.

Could they and would they have put out the DVD without it? Yes of course.

Reading Whit's very detailed time line of this entire episode I believe his and Bob's efforts were sufficient ethically and he spoke to his attorney about the legal aspects before releasing this valuable asset to the magic community.

I was at a convention this year and watched as Bob Sheets in the dealer room spent so much time talking to guys for hours about the shells, giving tips and even some history about them. ( I did not talk to him at all ) It was obvious to me then and now that his love for the shells and magic in general is not just about making money.

Unfortunately I find many people in our magic community petty and jealous and this looks like another episode in that light.

Whit,

I do see a difference between what you and Bob Sheets did and real rip off merchants that offer no compensation.

I do wonder about some things though. If you had found Doug Bush and he said that he didn't want you to include the routine, would you have anyway, just because it is legal for you to do so?

I've been one in the past that has spoken out a bit about Michael Ammar and his video series. I think the Ammar videos are well performed and well taught but virtually nothing on them is Michael's. I don't think it's right for someone to put out dvds or books of others material. This is a free ride.

I hope everyone understands what I am saying. Richard Kaufman and Stephen Minch put out books of UNPUBLISHED material by important creators. Vernon and Jennings, Hamman, etc. This is important and they do good work. But ANYONE on this board could put together a dvd of thier favorite card tricks by Marlo, John Bannon, and others and put it out. They could even ask permission and possibly get it in most cases just as I believe Ammar did. But does that make it right to put no creative thought or effort of your own into what you are selling?

Now, I realize that what Whit and Bob were offering has a lot more on it than just the Bush routine but why include it at all? If you wanted to make it available you should have tried to get the RIGHTS from him to republish his book and release it on dvd. But, it's not your thinking or work that went into it and if Bush wants to let it rot he should be able to.

There's a lot of great tricks that are not in copyright and as I understand it the copyright only protects the exact writing. You can still legally print a copyrighted trick IF you re-write it in your own wording. Copyright can't yet protect the hand movements and sequences, etc. I could do a book of great card tricks that are little known, out of copyright, and not mine, but what would you think of me?

I still think that Whit and Bob went a long way to make it right and did more than most would have done to fix the situation. Bush should just take what he was offered.

Whit,
It just goes to show that two grand in the Bush is worth more than two lawyers at hand. Sorry, if I don't make some of these awful puns when they strike me I get massive headaches. Guess I'll go refill that Rx.

Frank Tougas

Also getting dizzy here. What got me dizzy? Reading about what other people SHOULD feel or accept or believe or do.

Is there a hole in the story so far? From the date of project start (working from the Bush routine) to the date of first attempted contact is how long? sorry all those shoulds have me too queasy to do the review right now.

The questions about people who teach the works of others have a place in another discussion. Likewise what it means to publish the works of others who have passed on merits a separate discussion.

If you have not seen it, Steve P. has issued a very graceful apology for his part.

Yes, he has. He is a standup guy. He now realizes that he was being used by another with an agenda of his own.

While Steve Pellegrino and I still disagree about the nature of ethics in magic, we have talked since he issued his apology and are now on amicable terms.

The whole story will be revealed in time.

I wish to thank everyone here for reserving judgement until the matter is cleared up and the true story is fully revealed.

I was pleased to see the retraction on Steve's part, and equally pleased to see that Whit, et al., accepted it in the spirit it was offered. Both actions speak well of all parties involved.

Of course not. But we couldn't locate him and thought he was dead.

Our competitors have the same right to publish his booklet as we did, and evidently one of them wanted to do just that. I am not sure he would have been nearly as fair about it as we were. In fact, I know that to be the case.

Whit, I had respect for you as a writer and entertainer before. Most of this came from reading your essays in "the Chicago Surprise." But my respect for you went UP quite a few notches when I saw your reply to Steve's apology. As they say, "you got class."

*jeep!
--Chet

The good news is that Doug Bush has decided to accept our original offer. We will now be able to resolve everything with him amicably. That makes us very happy. It is what we were hoping would have happened had someone not intervened and tried to manipulate everything to his own advantage.

We now have all the details of the full story in hand.

As Hannibal Smith used to say: "I love it when a plan comes together!!"

Congratulations are due all around.

Well, we didn't really have a plan, only to not fight back and to simply state the truth.

If Steve Pellegrino had not been flexible and honest enough to admit that he had been hasty in his judgement, I don't think we would have been able to let the sun shine in on the whole affair.

The real problem is that most of the bloggers just went into a feeding-frenzy, and some of them were mad at me for standing up for my friend Steve Youell. They wanted to believe the worst.

I have always been a fan of our greatest Tennessee liar, David Crockett.

Davy Crockett said, "First, be sure you are right and then go ahead." That is pretty good advice.

He also said, when asked about being lost in the wilderness, "I've never been lost, but I have been a might bewildered for a few days."

I feel that I have been "a might bewildered for a few days..." but now everything is clear.

That's great! When all said and done the best news to ermerge is we all know now that Doug is alive and kicking and the magic he created is still alive and well.

Tommy

Yes. We really wanted to make sure that this wonderful work was not lost and forgotten.

Great news!! Well done guys. Great to see that the work is advanced and is available and the creator is recognized and satsified. I think this is a win/win for the parties involved.

Nice to see the parties settle this between themselves, the way it should be.

At the risk of stepping into a hornet’s nest…

I have stayed out of this discussion out of respect for the parties concerned. I did not feel it prudent to offer information that could impact the outcome of any potential legal action.

I am that pleased and relieved that Doug Bush will receive compensation for his work. It was appropriate and right for him to be compensated, and I hope he is satisfied with the outcome.

In the interest of full disclosure, my name is Andrew J. Pinard and I could be considered Whit’s competitor. At this time I only have a single product—La Maggiore—that would be deemed in competition with his product line. I have featured the shells prominently in my work for almost fifteen years, and I have been actively researching the shell game for over a decade while compiling a DVD project on the shell game for a number of years, including attempting to collect a variety of first party sources for ultimate release on my product. I am a full-time performer, and a very part-time dealer. I owned New Hampshire’s only magic shop for ten years and I have quietly contributed to magic in a number of ways through not only my professional and volunteer work on many organizations, but also by sponsoring dozens of lectures, teaching, publishing and helping out behind the scenes in many ways for scores of people. I don’t like to self-promote my work, preferring to work behind the scenes. Many people know me as a detail-oriented person who gives more than he asks (my wife suggests I give too much).

I am posting this not in an attempt to change anyone’s perspective on the proceedings, but rather as a cathartic effort to put the issue behind me and share some insight on my point of view.

I am not a bad man. I am sincerely concerned for individual property rights and very sensitive to behavior that I believe not to be fair, especially when perpetrated by those I believe to know better. That being said, I believe that those who know me would say that I am physically incapable of attacking another frivolously. I just don’t have the constitution for it. I have never openly (or covertly) attempted to defame or impugn the reputation of anyone. It is easy to see how one might attribute malicious intent on both sides; I am not the only one guilty of jumping to this conclusion. There were no bad men involved in this, just men of conviction who felt strongly about their positions and followed a course they deemed appropriate.

Let me state up front that I have a high regard for Whit & Bob. I use the Perfect Peas and made arrangements with Whit and Chef to not only package them with my product, but also showcase School for Scoundrels on my packaging. When I sent out my shells for review, Bob was one of the first to receive them and remains one of the strongest supporters of my shells, featuring them at lectures and performances around the country. Early in our relationship, I freely shared original research and aided Whit in finding sources for at least one item he was looking for (specifically where to find Soapy Smith’s routine published by Thayer as the Dr. Q routine—Whit knew from David Charvet that Thayer had published this routine, but had been unable to locate it until I pointed him to the Gravatt books).

Rather than proceed with any claims of unfair positioning, allow me to put forth one other side of the story…

This drama began with a decision on the part of the School for Scoundrels and Bob Sheets to include on their DVD a routine and facsimile of an original manuscript that they had not created and with no direct contact with the owner. This action on their part set everything rolling.

At the very end of the PDF, there was a notice that they believed this property to be in the public domain. They also indicated that they had “spent several years looking for Doug D. Bush without success—through Internet people search, talking to his old friends and acquaintances, checking with magic societies and magic web forums, etc.”

There was then issued the following plea:

“We have not given up however. If you know Doug D. Bush or his heirs please have them contact the School for Scoundrels at http://www.schoolforscoundrels.com.”

The decision to release this material seemed particularly incongruous with Whit’s high ethical stance and campaign against other manufacturers accused of not securing property rights or compensating creators. I believed at the time that this action seemed quite reckless, unjust and improper. A producer of a quality product usually does not rely upon his purchasers to locate the owner of the property after the fact.

Out of curiosity, with no particular agenda in mind, I did a search using switchboard.com, and in less than thirty seconds I found myself on the phone with Mr. Bush.

You can imagine my surprise!

The fact that I—purely on a whim—managed to make contact with the owner of this property so quickly when they had maintained an inability to locate him for so long strained credibility. The ease with which I found him I attributed not to good luck on my part but rather as their lack of a sincere effort to make actual contact to compensate Mr. Bush.

I made an on-the-spot decision to attempt to purchase the rights to the routine to add to my work-in-progress. I do have an interest in the matter, and this was purely a business decision to protect my own product. The attempt was not made with any malicious intent on harming the School for Scoundrels or Bob Sheets. In my haste, I did not consider any particular ramifications of my actions.

All I knew was that it was not my place to inform School for Scoundrels that I had located Doug Bush, nor was it my business to notify Mr. Bush that his material was included on an existing product without his authorization.

My hope was to purchase the rights from the originator, so that I could legally use the material. School for Scoundrels left the door open and I leapt through it…

After a discussion about the manuscript, I indicated my desire to purchase the rights. Mr. Bush requested that I send him an offer by mail. I indicated I would and thanked him for his time.

After I got off the phone with Doug Bush, I called Steve Pellegrino, a friend and fellow student of the shell game and shared with him my excitement at discovering Doug Bush and my bewilderment with School for Scoundrels apparent lack of effort. It once again seemed to me to be awfully cavalier (not to mention irresponsible) to publish unsecured material. I could not fathom why School for Scoundrels had been unable to get hold of him, once again believing that perhaps the lack of effort indicated a lack of desire. The apparent hypocrisy of their action was also discussed. I informed Steve of my impulse offer to purchase the material.

I decided to contact a few friends (including a Preacher’s husband/deacon of our local church, an MIT graduate and others) to get their opinion about the ethics/morality of my offer. All of them believed that I was well within my rights to make the offer. They also concurred that it was good business and that the actions by School for Scoundrels appeared not only to be misguided but an exhibit of poor business practices.

A couple of days after the phone conversation I sent off a complimentary set of La Maggiore shells to show my appreciation for his consideration and a letter containing my intentions, my background and an offer. My offer was on the low end, but he had indicated a willingness to haggle.

I called him a week later and he indicated with a not-so-small measure of irritation that my offer was too low, and that he considered it an insult. He mentioned that if I added adding an additional zero at the end then maybe we could talk. I thanked him for his time.

I was disappointed by his response and decided that it wouldn’t be prudent to pay what he was asking, particularly knowing that the property had already been released to the magic public in its unauthorized form. I didn’t want to leave him feeling angry about my offer, so I sent him a letter and explained why I could not offer what he was asking. The pertinent part of the letter (dated May 17th) follows:

“This project is a labor of love for me, but I cannot in good conscience commit the capital you are looking for on only one small component of the larger project. I had to consider many factors specific to your manuscript. Your manuscript was available commercially for some time, reached a certain saturation level and was taken off the market. Many other newer, competing products have to some extent superseded your product. Last, but not least, it has come to my attention that your product is currently being used as the centerpiece of an instructional video and included in facsimile for free on that project (without your consent).”

“Your product is valuable. The presentational approach is very strong and has been recognized as such by being featured on television by at least two different performers. I personally enjoy the routine and feel that you deserve broader recognition for your work.
I certainly respect your desire for larger compensation. I would love to offer you more, but the fiscal reality of the situation precludes me from increasing my offer. I would be happy to help your manuscript reach a larger market in another way by offering to sell it on threeshellgame.com. If you could make two dozen copies available to me at wholesale, I would be happy to make them available to my customers.”

It should be noted that even at this stage I did not feel it appropriate to inform Mr. Bush of who I believed to be infringing on his copyright. I merely wanted to explain why I could not increase my offer and attempt to give him another outlet for his product.

A couple of days went by and I received a phone call from Doug Bush. He seemed justifiably angry on hearing of the infringement and asked me who had published the routine. I was reticent, but on being asked directly I answered succinctly and truthfully. He then asked if I had a copy of the DVD and if I would sell it to him. I agreed and mailed him the material the next day. Once again, I did not volunteer information, but provided it when asked.

At no time did I ever incite Doug Bush towards any legal action against the School for Scoundrels. I felt bad for his situation, but did not recommend any course of action. I merely asked him to keep me informed and offered a place to sell the printed manuscripts.

Sometime during this, Steve Pellegrino approached me about a post he wanted to put on his blog. He believed at the time that the action initiated by School for Scoundrels was inappropriate and illustrated a point he was trying to make. He sent the first post to me (the first he ever sent to me to vet) to make sure that I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I made several suggestions—particularly on cutting some inflammatory remarks that didn’t have any bearing on the issue at hand—and then suggested that he was within his rights to publish the rest. This article (no longer available) gave his opinion and position on matters that were essentially public record. His position on the School for Scoundrels action was similar to mine, but I did not encourage him to post any of the material nor did I give him any direction in any of the subsequent postings, with the exception of his final post before he withdrew the articles and offered an apology (I suggested that he end the series, particularly because the only opinion that would really matter was a judge’s if the matter went to court). I read his posts and noted the escalating responses, but did not believe it prudent to comment on a matter that was essentially between Whit, Chef & Bob and Mr. Bush. Did I influence Steve on his writings? Perhaps, through our discussions, but Steve chose what and when he wanted to write. I was not a deciding factor on his (or any other blogger’s) actions. I do not believe that he feels manipulated by me and Steve has stated this publicly—if obliquely.

After Mr. Bush received the DVD, he reviewed it and found it wanting. He was understandably upset that someone would have the temerity to, in his words, “steal” the material. He mentioned threats of going after them. I basically tried to step away from any involvement, even going so far as to indicate that to him that it was never my intent to harm School for Scoundrels. I did concur with his assertion that it was his property and he would go after anyone who took it without permission. Steve’s first post had been made that day and with good intentions I brought it to his attention hoping he would realize that he wasn’t the only one who believed that the action that School for Scoundrels took was not just inappropriate but wrong. Perhaps I should have been more circumspect, but I had no idea that he would post a comment and I still had concern for his situation.

At this point I stepped out. I had no further contact with Doug Bush until a couple of days ago. I had told him I would call in the beginning of September to see how he was doing. I expressed my hope that he wasn’t being too stressed out by the exploding situation online and wished him well.

I saw other bloggers jump on the bandwagon with far less restraint (and even less information) than Steve had had and with much more vitriol. I feel enormous regret that the situation degenerated in this manner. Regardless of the personal taunting and Whit’s increased claims of third party hidden agenda I stayed silent to avoid causing any further difficulties. I am not responsible for other’s conduct. I believe that any responsibility for public actions or statements lie with those who perpetrated them.

Whit and I have had our disagreements, but for the most part have continued to support each other’s work. Unfortunately, for reasons I am still uncertain of, the relationship has become estranged, and I am sure that this situation has certainly not helped any.

Any accusations that I insinuated myself between Whit and Mr. Bush are groundless. There had been no communication between the two parties and I did not see it as my place to bring the two together.

I honestly believe that my actions were legal, moral, ethical and proper. My tactics were legitimate business practices made in the best interest of protecting and expanding my product line while attempting to compensate someone whose work had value. I did not attempt to manipulate anyone for any nefarious or malicious purposes. I do not have a policy of attempting to damage other’s reputations either through open or covert methods. I have not openly criticized anyone or their actions on this subject, and this will likely be my one and only post on this topic.

I do not seek redemption—I stand by my actions. My efforts—while justified in my eyes—did have the unfortunate effect of causing stress and anguish for several people and to them I offer my apologies.

This saga was not without benefits. Valid issues about appropriate behavior have been raised. Hopefully, debate will continue with the goal that one day we will have a consistent code of ethics that will help eliminate rampant disregard for the rights of others.

As producers, we need to be extra careful to protect creator’s rights. We should be vigilant in our own actions and certain that we have exhausted all opportunities to contact and compensate deserving parties before production.

My sincere hope is that by putting my side out there everyone will finally see that no malice was intended on my part and that I regret any actions that may have caused any undue stress to either party. I hope that with time, the rift between Whit, Bob, Chef and me may be mended and that someday we will laugh about this situation over drinks.

Hopefully, now the chapter is finally ended and we can all get back to bringing joy to the world…

I have nothing more to say on this matter.

Andrew

I have not been an uninterested third party in this whole thing, partially because I was one of those who was maligned by the bloggers, and partially because I have known Whit and Bob for a very long time.



You can imagine my surprise, too. I used a detectives' database to try to locate Doug Bush in Georgia and came up completely dry. I also contacted a booking agency in Atlanta to see if he could be located for a trade show, under the names Dr. Beaumont and Doug Bush, and they have not located him yet.

I cannot believe that anyone would make the claims of non-participation Andrew has made with a clear conscience, not realizing exactly what would happen when he fed the information to Steve Pellegrino.

I know for a fact that both Bob and Whit had tried to contact Dr. Beaumont and later Doug Bush over a period of several years. Even a close friend of his at church did not know that Doug Bush was Dr. Beaumont.

If anyone thinks that Andrew has "for the most part supported Whit's work," take a look at what he has to say about Whit's shells on his web site. You don't sell product by knocking the competition.

If he had really been supportive of Whit's work, he would have called him immediately and told him how to contact Doug Bush. Instead, he went behind whit's back and tried to undermine his success.

I am so glad to see all this taken care of. It seems an unfortunate incident, but I am glad that it has been resolved to everyones satisfaction. I do believe that it made us all think. I think everyone had good intentions.
I think discussion can be a good thing as it helps us define our own parameters of what we believe our code of ethics is and should be. So in that sense I hope this unfortunate incident had at least some benefits.
I do know however that I checked online during all this and I was able to find ph number and address for a Doug Bush in Atlanta almost instantly...It's really unforunate he wasn't found earlier, but then again I hope there has been some benefit to it. Although I am sure it was stressful for everyone involved and for that it is a shame, but I have to say it made me consider a lot of issues I never did before.
Peace Beth