Ok Daegs, don't you think we're overdoing it here? I hope that, as a coin magician, you previously bought everything from Marlo and Skinner before doing a spider vanish, otherwise you're nothing but a thief. I hope you have found a way to also reward Tenkai, Kaps, l'Homme Masque, Ramsay, Slydini etc. for their immense contribution to your magic. Have you? I thought so...

To sum it up, you PAY to get a secret. If you watch a performance and you GUESS the method, you still can pay for it IF YOU WANT in order to have access to some subtleties, or improve the handling. But if you try it, and it works fine, then, why pay? If, as a creator, you want to get PAID, then come up with methods that are worth paying for. Doesn't that make sense?

Phedon


Phedon

Please... again, whether or not I am a thief(which I am not I can send you pictures of my ramsey, marlo, Slydini, kaps stuff if you want) IS NOT THE POINT.(also by the way I am not a coin magician....)

whether or not I'm a hypocrite or thief has no effect on whether stealing of creators is wrong... please discuss the issue here




GREAT finally something that actually attempts to discuss the issue!!!!

What exactly are "methods that are worth paying" for in your mind?

How do you decide what effects are ok to steal and which aren't? By whether or not you can figure out the online demo?

Does this mean that all magic effects with demo's are ok to steal, but any that don't "are worth paying for" and therefore not ok to steal?

Does the quality of the effect not matter, but mearly whether or not it can stand up to repeated viewings?

Daegs, a question comes to mind: HOW qualitative is a sleight anybody can first figure out, and then reproduce without any explanation? Would you feel secure performing this?

I personally bought MANY, MANY things, and my criteria were the following: I LIKED the performances, and then I wanted to understand the method and perform the routines. Example: take a routine using no knuckle-busting sleights such as Troy this one or even Extroydinary by Troy Hooser. I watched, I liked, and was curious about the methods. Result: I bought.
Now, I watched Infusion, I figured it out the very first time I saw it (like many magicians here), and after a couple of attempts, performed it OK (but far from Geir)... Tell me now... Should I buy the effect? Would you? Why? I already paid Williamson for the sleight that I actually used to accomplish this effect (with a variation of course).

My two cents

Phedon

(in regards to a effect easly figured out by magicains) YES I would..... I perform for laymen, and if a magician that understands coin moves, card mvoes, ect can figure something out after watching a fixed camera demo over and over, I really don't have any problem with performing that for laymen. to judge a routine or move by whether it fools magicians when viewed by a fixed camera and viewed over and over is just foolish.

Yes you should buy the effect. Yes if I wanted to perform it I would. Because you didn't think about apply the move to this situation, Geir did... you never would have thought about ti had geir not shown you... you owe him for learning it and before performing it you should buy it from him or at least get his permission to use it.

Try it!!! send him an email saying "Hey I figured out your routine from the ellusionist video and since I'm short on cash, I was wondernig if I could use the move in a routine I perform?"


See what happens... at the worst he will yell at you for stealing his routine, which we already are doing.. More likely he will either give you permission or at least give you his views on the subject and it would be a lot more productive and educational than argueing on this board.

Interesting...I too bought some video which taught the SV years ago and the tape is lost and has been for awhile. I had played with the move involving a half dollar and a rock glass...I thought I was on to something, but gave up on the idea. When I saw the demo recently I thought well somebody else came up with it to and it looks realy nice what a small world!

I still don not like the effect using the glass cup, it just seems to obvious to me.

I had never thought about doing it with a snapple bottle until I read about it at the big E site, I tried it a few times and the bottle broke eventually. I switched to a plastic 20oz Powerade bottle.

I thought to myself it seems still to obvious, the lid should still be on the darn bottle if this is to be magical.

So in my handling the cap is on the bottle from beginning to end, or so it seems. So I changed the handling and effect...

Is it now my own or am I a thief?

johnny

You credit the original that is in print or DVD (some type of media).

It's like music there has to be certain differences in order it to be considered different.

also if you see someone do some thing and that person has not put it in print yet then you should not show your version off to other magicians unless they give you permission. the inventor may say you can show it to layman but please don't let it get out.

Now if you create a variation of that persons effect and it's not in print you need to ask for permission to put yours in print and still give credit to the original. If they say now you need to respect there wishes and keep yours tight until they publish theirs.

Joe Rindfleisch

Look, while a bit extreme, overall Daegs is right!

I'll try to use a different example: If I "guessed" the ingredients of a Betty Crocker Cake, does that mean I can make the EXACT same cake (same ingredients exactly) and sell it as my own? NO!

How about music....if I "figured out" how to play a song exactly like the original band, does that give me the right to peform it publically as my own? NO!

There are a couple keys here to this argument that some are missing. If you "figure out" how a magic trick is done, and perform it THE EXACT SAME WAY, with NO changes to the effect whatsoever, then you are wrong! Simple.

Now if you figure out something and customize it....change the handling, etc. then it's a different effect. In my cake example, if I added an ingredient or changed the amount of sugar, etc. then it's not the Betty Crocker cake anymore. I personally would still purchase it to learn the subleties and such.

Lastly, if he is performing this for friends and family only, not being paid for it, what's wrong with that?

In my opinion, I think this is where it really matters....when you are using these things in paid/public performances.

Just my thoughts....
Skarn

If you copy something you saw and figure out the method and then add some trivial change or handling you have something that is barely your own. If you came up with the same or similar effect without seeing another perform it then it's yours to perform. If you want to sell it and did a reasonable search of effects out there then I think your on good ethical grounds. If it turns out someone invented the same thing say in the 1948 Linking Ring which you never read then I don't think you did anything wrong. I think the test is, was the effect original to you when you created it and did you make a reasonable search to check that out.

Yes Larry!
that's what I was getting at in my previous posts.

Joe Rindlfeisch

I think that at the end of the day, there is a lot of common ground between all of our viewpoints and we're getting lost in the hypothetical complexities. My take on all of this is that it was in poor taste for JokersWild to flaunt the fact that he didn't purchase the effect. No one would ever have known had he not mentioned it- which doesn't make his actions any better or worse ethically speaking, but it wouldn't have touched the nerve that it has. I only objected to his being called out as some form of cretin, because for all we know, he is a 15 year old kid who has never been exposed to the moral complexities of intellectual property.

We clearly need to protect creators of effects (even though it seems like there is almost always some dispute about how new something is or isn't, or who really invented it, etc.), but we also need to realize that sometimes, what is best for a particular creator is not what's best for the community at large. Intellectual property is important, but we can't pretend that people are going to subordinate their sense of wonder and desire, so as to worship at the alter of IP. I still believe that even with somewhat transparent methods, most creators would still be sufficiently rewarded for their efforts if they were to release superior explanations and value added enticements to their offerings.

Finally, demos are a wonderful thing. I just spent this morning fishing out clips of the magician Cyril. I can't figure out a darned thing that he's doing. If watching him cause a quarter to penetrate a glass countertop inspires me to come up with my own method (regardless of how similar or not it is to his), I will not ask him for permission. Having a coin penetrate a table top is not his idea, even if his version is the one that got me thinking.

And fyi Skarn, if you figured out the Betty Crocker Cake, you could in fact bake it without having to buy the recipe. And what are cover bands if not people performing somebody elses music? What's clearly illegal and immoral is to profit from re-releasing somebody's material (regardless of the field), not using it for personal enjoyment.

Oh I agree with you 100%! I was stating that I couldn't bake it and sell it as my own! I also agree with the cover band analogy....but they couldn't cut an album without acknowledging the originals...heck today a restaraunt can't even sing Happy Birthday without getting license rights!

Larry: You stated "If you came up with the same or similar effect without seeing another perform it then it's yours to perform". Hmmmm I'm not so sure of that. So what if I came up with a song without actually hearing it? I'ts not "mine to perform" now is it? Or a more relavant example: If you invented and copywrited an effect, but I somehow came up with the same thing a few years later, the bottom line is it's your effect and I do not have a right to perform it without your permission, yes?

Skarn

Are children who grab things from each other thieves?

Not sure how to label a large body of people in the magic community, but I don´t think we can credit them with much maturity.

At what age should we begin to hold them responsible for their actions?

How many years should someone have in magic before we expect them to have learned some basic sense, decency, and respect?

Skarn,
The difference between magic and other endeavors is magic depends on secrecy. I can do a patent search for an idea because a database exists for that. I could check out all the songs that were written and copyrighted theoretically. That would be quite an endeavor. But it could be done. With magic, no such database of all the effects that were published in book form, lecture notes, magazine, or individual manuscript exists. You can't search such a database. If I write songs and copyright them (and I have) it announces to the world in a legal sense that this is my creation and this is when it was created. Is it possible the same melody and same words were written 30 years ago by someone else? Sure, and if that were the case I might have to prove in court that I did not have an opportunity to copy it otherwise my copyright would be invalidated by the original copyright holder. If I invent an effect and it was well known to be described in the Tarbell Course or say Bobo's Modern Coin Magic then it could be argued that I didn't do a reasonable search to see if what I invented is unique. But if the effect was sold as a manuscript 40 years ago which is out of print and only 100 copies were made, then it would be reasonable to expect you might not be aware of that citation.
Who owns the effect? Well, ethically it should be the first to publish it or market it. Suppose you invented it 30 years ago and only your closest friends knew about it and it was never published. If I invent a similar thing being totally unaware of your invention did I do something wrong? Of course not. If I later find that you came up with a similar idea then I'm all for giving credit or sharing credit. He don't live in a vacuum. We are influenced by many factors and some we may not be aware of. We need to be fair and reasonable and give credit where credit is due, but remember, there are a lot of creative people out there and as they say, great minds think alike.

Actually in this case you have every right to perform it(independent creation).

What you can't do, though, is publish it and claim it as your own without crediting and geting permission from the original creator. you can state that you came up with it yourself, but you should have permission for publishing imho from the original creator.

But I say anything you *honestly* created yourself without seeing someone elses effect is fair game as far as your personal perfomances are concerned, and you only have to worry about the publishing and crediting part.

If I can deduce the methods than I'm not going to pay. Plain and simple. unless I'm getting caught a lot and it need work. Then I will pay to make it better. If a trick is worth getting then it should be amazing and not eazy to figure out!

Phedon is a 100 % right. And sodman12 is too. Everybody else is just telling us what they would like the world to be and they make themselves better than they are. Moreover, I don`t believe them at all.

I'm just wondering what Dave Williamson and Michael Weber (and Richard Kaufman for that matter since both were published in books he wrote) would think about this? Since the sleight is Dave's and the routine belongs to Mike Weber, not Geir.

The sleight is in Dave's book "Williamson's Wonders" (written by Richard Kaufman) and on his latest DVD "Magic Farm." Michael Weber's routine "Striking Glass" can be found in Richard Kaufman's book "The Collected Almanac" also in Michael Weber's Book "Life Savers."

"Infusion" isn't any different from "Striking Glass." I do believe Geir may have independently came up with this.

This is the problem with demo clips. Some watch them over and over until they figure out the routine, then "take" without paying the creator, which bring up a number of problems. 1) IF the creator wanted to sale his product, then those who "took" are "taking" money out of his pocket. 2) He might stop releasing his creations all together, this has happened in the past.

Joe

The way I see it we're dealing with an issue which is very similar to that of major music companies vs. mp3-files, napster etc. - it's the media through which we mediate our material (be it magic, music or movies), and the recipitants "un-intended" use of these, that causes the real "problems".

Sure, *.wmw-files are exeptional since they allow everyone with a personal computer and a webcam to produce their "own" recordings of magic(a), but they also provide us small files ideal for our websites - and as soon as material is available to the entire world (in theory), we loose control of the usage.

Personaly I would like to see some info on how much money magicians actualy loose due to this subject, before I'd cry about it. Besides there is the issue of a hypothetical loss af income contra the increase in respect in the "magicians on the www" context - I know; respect doesn't pay the rent, but in long term it may lead to an increase in sales of magic material; take a look at our very own Dan Watkins: his site inspired hundreds of people to pick up coin magic (myself included), and I'm pretty sure that the demos on his website has had no effect on the sales of his "Coin Man Walking"-DVD

Besides, I'm pretty sure that JokersWild meant: '"My" infusion Video', and not "My infusion video" (note A)

My english is pretty rusty - sorry ;-)

Thanks for a wonderful forum!

This is an interesting discussion. It has definitely helped me decide on the pros and cons of putting out a demo video.

I have been asked several times on the Café whether I would put out a demo of my bill switch Changeabill. The answer is I haven't, and I won't. When offering a demo video of an effect, the creator is at a disadvantage. The viewer is in control, and has the ability to pause, rewind, and even play the demo in slow motion. God knows I have watched every Copperfield special in slow-motion on the VCR as a kid!

This is the exact opposite of a real-world situation. In the real world, the MAGICIAN is in control - in control of the timing, the angle, and whether or not the move or effect should be repeated. To suggest that if the modus operandi can be devised from a video, then it is not a strong effect simply shows immaturity of performance philosophy. You are a MAGICIAN and you know what to look for (as opposed to your audience) and can afford to look for it in a video.

That said, I am not defending my reluctance to put out a video because it gives away the M.O. It doesn't. And it has fooled some of the best. But if demos are scrutinized until the viewer at home can approximate the effect or move rather than reward its author who put in all the work in its creation and subtleties, then what is the point?

I think you can judge the value of an effect by its author or producer. I have no idea if a demo would increase or decrease sales. I just know that I wouldn't put one out, for Changeabill or any future effect I may put out. A video that portrays the "flavor" of the effects, maybe, but not one that demonstrates them and leaves them naked and vulnerable.

I would imagine that many creators would feel the same way...

Exactly!!!

Now what this means is that while many will not be able to rip Changeabill off, many others won't get a chance to see the effect to determine if they want to buy it.

So now the community of magic is hurting from not being able to view this demo, because of people that will steal magic from the demo's.

What we have here is a struggle between new original magic coming into the market highly visible and with demo's that are availible to you, and the ability to steal a lot of magic for no money from the demo's. Choose to steal and you get less magic and less demo's, leaving you with less material to steal and less good magic to buy. Choose to respect the creator and you can find more magic being released, more demo's and better magic as a whole.

This is the choice that many have to make, do you want great magic video's coming into public view and also be able to watch them via demo's before buying, or do you want something where all the good magic is kept secret or released on a small scale because large attention or demo's will just cause their work to be stolen.