Actually, Tom, I think a lot of the basis of this and similar magical ethics discussions come about because there isn't any way of enforcing legal performance rights, the way one can with musical and written works. I used music as an easy example, ignoring the legal ramifications, to try to get to a similar situation and to think about it.

To make it more similar, let me try the following: If one is NOT using music to enhance value and thereby make a profit, like in a general play-music-for-one's-own-enjoyment-or-for friends way, we have a situation legally analogous to magic; neither has any legal protections. Neither situation allows the creators of works/songs/routines to stop folks from using those works in that way. The same goes for home play readings.

So, if one learns music or a dramatic piece, and then sells the work from which it was learned, is it unethical to play it in a situation where there are no legal consequences? Is it unethical of me to play "Sister Goldenhair" in a friendly jam, as I learned it from a record, now long gone, and don't own the arrangement? Is it unethical for someone to make others laugh by quoting chapter and verse from a funny movie or television show?

To be clear, I think that this particular ethics question (#2) has to do with whether one gains an ethical license to perform material, divorced from any legal rights, when one doesn't own the original work. That was what I wanted to address, by presenting other situations that might also be divorced from legalities.This is really what the question boils down to, whether one wants to accept these examples of other ethical examples that exist in the same legal framework as magic creation/performance, or not.

As Jonathan broaches, the idea of license (whether based on legality, or just a sense of decency in how one treats others as one wishes to be be treated oneself), and the lack thereof, is at the heart of this discussion.

Unfortunately, I have no answers, but wanted to bring up other situations that also exist in that same area outside of questions of legality.

Cheers!

I think the term "license" is confusing, because most of us associate that with something that has legal ramifications enforceabale by a court of law. There may be a few effects that require a contract to be signed before purchasing, but the vast majority of effects and books don't involve licensing per se as far performance rights and the like (I realize there are real legal issues with copyright infringement, but I think that's slightly off topic).

The idea that owning a book or DVD or prop gives you the right to perform it is a question of ethics, not law, so I think it might be confusing to some when you say "license to use it in performance."

The term license seems correct to me if we treat magicdom as a polis. However, for the sake of those who would like a more familiar term... perhaps we could use receipt or proof of purchase to convey the sense of this thing gives me the right to work on and perform this stuff IE a physical embodiment of the IP used.

I suggest folks read up on ancient Greece to learn about the roots of ethos and polis and then a bit about Rome to learn about law. Yeah I know, we all hate homework. My intent using the old words is to make disucssions of very basic issues easier for all of us.

PS just found out my spell checker was changing polis to police. funny.

To me it makes more sense to say that, in your opinion, if you buy a book or an effect, that gives you the ethical right to perform it. When we talk about receipts and proofs of purchase and licenses, that implies that this is a legal issue, which it isn't.

Yes, Jimtron, ultimately it is a legal issue. If you don't own your own thoughts and the work you did to take those thoughts and realize results...

ownership->property->right to dispose etc. All old stuff handled by the Romans. The only additional axiom I am adding is the recognition of a secret as property in magicdom.

Muggledom has "trade secrets" and associated laws to handle that. What we need is something to make claim of the IP in magic as trade secrets, some rules about how we handle these trade secrets (stuff in OLD books) and from there how we respect NEW trade secrets.

I'm talking about your idea that owning a book or effect gives you the right to perform it--that's a legal issue?

Jim, (sidenote here folks on the atoms of commerce, ethics, and end user license agreemtemts for data )

When you buy the book, you are trading something for something. I hold that part of what you are paying for is the information (DATA) in the book, the ideas etc.

What distinguishes a person who does not have the data from one who does? Their behavior obviously. The one with the data does things which make use of the data, and the one without the data does things which do not make use of the data.

Okay, now we have treated data like a physical object whose presense we can detect.

In review, we have traded money for data which we they apply to the betterment of our work, and those without the data are also without the advantages given from the use of the data. Okay so far?

Using that model, we are obliged to NOT use the data when not in possesion of the book. Just like we don't use our car without our driver's license and registration. Or in a more modern view, we don't use MSWindows when not in possesion of the licnese key and slip of paper which is the grant of license. Think software end user license agreement and see the book as the license certificate.

Of course I'm open to other interpretations of what we mean by value in magic. I just offered a simple model where we treat books as a collection of data and we pay for the data.

I agree, I just think it makes things more confusing to call the purchase of a book a "license" to perform it.

The examples of a driver's license and Windows are not relevant, because those are legal documents. If I perform OOTW without purchasing the effect or Curry's book, there's no legal authority that can do anything about it. You're talking about unwritten, ethical rules, not legal ones (in terms of performing rights after purchasing an effect or book; I'm not talking about copyright here).

Jim, to connect what we currently have and what I am describing, imagine a certificate that comes with the book, serialized, and offering grant of license the way you get with software. Very simple idea here.

Yes, I can imagine that. But it doesn't exist. The right to perform after purchase is an unwritten rule or social construct. It's not an enforceable law. So why call it a license?

Jim, once upon a time we did not have knives and forks, running water or automobiles. Clearly there are advantages to those things. Today we DO have software and EULA in force. I am taking the position that the book is made of data and we use that data when we perform the works. Even a facile analysis would reveal that the data are not consumed in the process of usage. What then are we trading money for? I suggest it is the right to use the data. This puts us directly in parallel to the software situation. We buy a license to use the software. Likewise we CAN (not do, can) treat secrets in magic.

To date we don't have a working language for most of these ideas. Bob Kohler and use EULA on the holdout system is a step in this direction. The end user license agreement limits what one can do with the data offered as product in that one is prohibited from exposing the data to any non-owners.

This thinking is implicit in the craft of magic. How many times have you read "you are paying for the secret" and similar. It just happens that our culture has overtaken magic in the aspect of having language to discuss the issues.

Most simply: What grants you the right to do a trick? What responsibilities are attendant to that right. Those are the basic questions magicdom has yet to examine and settle upon a code of ethics. Currently we have a playground for our inner children which is ... well it has issues.

The principle is not Ethical in my opinion:
When you buy a MAGIC book you are buying secrets from a magician and that magician trusts you not to tell or resell the secrets he sold you.

Which principle Tommy?

The principle of not sharing or selling secrets without the permission of the magician who sold them to you. Jon.

Thanks Tommy. The notions of permision (license) and secret are the very things I'm trying to codify here in these discussions. What I'm posting is based upon the model of software use and licensing. It saddens me to see us looking at a process where we wind up with legislation of morality.

Johanthon:

I think we're basically on the same page, and I understand your point. My only point was that the term "license" might cause confusion. Do you think magic effects and books should have legal licenses like software?


Who is suggesting legislating morality?

While both can be considered data, software is different than knowledge in that it is highly codified. Reverse engineering or modification is normally proscribed. The advantage of using it as is over writing one's own software is a matter of (let's say) convenience, which works to the advantage of the publisher. However, it is perfectly possible and legal to take the idea or function of most software and develop some original software that does the same thing or something similar. The ethics of the business community does not prevent this -- merely a question of cost/benefit.

What then of the ethics of the magical community? Its hard to conceive of a circumstance where the secret of a magic trick or method would be sufficiently codified to make it licensable. Unlike software, immediately on using the knowledge (performing the trick) it becomes changed, since no two performers have identical personalities. The right of Thrifty to use his knowledge seems intact. The foolishness of ditching his reference material remains a matter of opinion (mine certainly).

I do think it would be quite difficult if not impossible to "license" magic secrets. Also, Phaedrus requested that we stick to ethical questions, not legal ones.

Large and complicated post there Michael. I will pull out a few propositions for rebuttal:



1) if that were true, there would be no problem with openly disucssing the mechanical aspects of the F/K holdout, Dean Dills Explosion or his Box, the thing David Copperfield used in "Flying" or the levitation method used by Cris Angel in his special of that name. I argue that license is not given even to discuss those things openly for reasons stated earlier in my posts, that these are secrets of commercial value and it would be unethical to destroy the secret for the other Café members. Perhaps IF one were to offer Dean Dill or Criss Angel a sufficient sum, they might consent to permit such open discussion. That would be grant of license. Q. E. D.

2)I argue that the secrets in magic are a bit more abstract and do not depend upon the performer or performance outside of a fairly base "proper utilization" of the devices and concepts proffered for money. For example the secret to the zig-zag woman illusion does not depend upon the performer, or (not exposing too much here I hope ) even the color dress of the assistant or... shudder the costume of the performer or their native language. The value of the data, the secret is entirely embodied in the particular construction of the illusion and some basic instructions for its use. Therefore like software, its utility and effetiveness ( in magic, its deceptiveness )is encapsulcated by its design and the operating procedures which are its secrets. Q. E. D.

This is my reply to Jimtron about legislating morality from our PM discussion, offered here by his request.

In reply to: "Who is suggesting legislating morality? "

if we need to extend the definition of copyright to parallel the digital media rights act, we are appealing to law where a simple notion of right and wrong would better serve us.

If we need to put a certificate in our books and products to serve as license, we are again appealing to a legal system.

Do we need to add effective sanctions to our little world of magicdom or can we select out the amoral and predatory and keep them from our midst?