IMHO, when it comes the effects, it would seem sensible to take our audience's perceptions seriously.

When it comes to "are these two tricks the same, or if not identical, how close" we can use a muggle's eye view to guide our thinking. If they are indistinguishable excepting one performer had rolled up sleeves and used a red rope and the other performer did not roll up their sleeves and used a white rope, perhaps we would should consider the two tricks may as well be considered "the same" even if the backstage methodology were completely different. In card magic, the "card you put in the middle that is now on the top" seems, IMHO, to be the same effect no matter the method.

Or better yet, if for a moment you pretend that the method was "use of actual magic", would you consider the tricks distinct?

How does that work for folks? Eager to know what you think. -J

I understand your wish to privilege effect, but it doesn't sound usable yet. If "the card rises to the top" is a copyrightable plot, regardless of method, then I think we're in trouble. I think there needs to be some provision for the uniqueness of the plot, and I think that that is a professional judgement, not an audience one.

Consider, too, the opposite case: two effects, whose methodology is the same, but to the audience the effects are different. Say, a disappearing cigarette and an appearance of a handful of salt.

Shouldn't the inventor of the TT get credit for both, even though for non-magicians the effects are very different?

How many audience members feel a real difference between ACAAN or SCAAN, when each is performed up to professional standards? How many could describe the actual difference, or care about the difference? And I hate to say it, but a few weeks later, what would the description of a spectator's experience of VCA and plain old CA be? I'm not sure they would read all that differently for a spectator. Of course, magicians know there's a world of difference.

Summary:

1) Effects with unique plots should be considered property of their originators, uniqueness to be decided by the magic community, regardless of methodology.

2) Ownership of effects with non-unique plots to be based on the methodology. Originality of methodology to be decided by the magic community.


Jack Shalom

I'd like to keep us out of murky method waters on this stuff and go with a thought experiment that may serve as a guide.

Imagine the piece (simple one effect - trick) performed recorded.
Now, play the recording with the sound OFF.
Get some THEATRICAL folks to watch (attentive muggles).

Okay, now take another item and play that video without the sound.

If they say it was the same thing...you know there's grounds to question the item.

My intent here is to avoid issues regarding factors we call "clean" or "proving", as they are not intrinsic to the piece, just to how we sometimes try to cancel backtracking efforts to find the method...and that, by definition, is backstage mechanics and not part of this discussion.

How does this "silent movie test" work for you?

I would think that's possible, unless the story was out of copyright. If the author was alive, then it might be possible to get his permission. Mark Elsdon did just that with SF writer Harlan Ellison some years ago.

Paul.

Just friggin' ask before you get all invested in an idea. You might get support from the author/inventor...

Jonathan ,

I like your silent movie idea, judged by attentive spectators. Though, I think there might be some interesting surprises in store...

I'm still stuck over the issue of the "public domain" plot. Two questions:

1) Do you think there is such a thing?

2) If so, who decides what is a public domain plot? And I'll put this in the "later" box: if some plots are in the public domain, then we can't avoid talking about method.


Clearly, though, your call for respecting the creators and their ideas, common courtesy, is the most important part of this thread.

Jack Shalom

There's many ideas floating around. I've had ideas and inventions that showed up on the market by others. They pursued it to market before I did. I`m not mad at them. I have a friend that had a idea, and someone else had the same idea and got it on the market before he did (his name kept confidential). It's part of life.
Getting copyrights and patents is a vicious game. In the past, many fought to keep theirs (Edison). When a good idea comes to mind, pursue a copyright fast!!!! An idea is to seal it in an envelope, have a blue post stamped certifying it and mailed back to you, or have it notarized. Do something to prove the date you invented it. That will help ensure it can be yours.
Chuck

To start with, you can't copyright an idea.

Have a look via the Café Quicksearch for some other threads where this topic has been discussed before.

Magic is just starting to get its act straightened out and will be a very strange place about this for the next generation or so. I feel the process is worthwhile.

Ideas are everyone's to pursue; those take claim on one is not telling the truth.

Would you share some thoughts on where this test might produce interesting results?

I think there could be surprises in that what magicians commonly take as one plot could be very distinct effects in the minds of spectators. That is, it could be that vanishing an airplane and vanishing a car would be considered entirely different from an audience viewpoint, even though the methodology was exactly the same.

And vice-versa. All four ace tricks are the same. (Well, maybe they are...bad example ) All vanishes are the same--maybe to an audience the vanish of a coin and the vanish of a beer bottle are the same.

Also, by privileging the visual actions over verbal actions, I think some real distinctions in plot could be lost. Magician predicts what color card spectator is thinking of; magician predicts what color spectator is thinking of.

I'm not saying I know for sure...that's why they would be surprises. Yes, an interesting experiment to find out.

But, I don't think the original post can be answered without tackling the concept of "public domain" in magic. I sense you want not to talk about that, but I'm not sure why.

Jack

Jack, IMHO, what we find in old books magic books is public domain IN magicdom, but when we take those things and make them part of our working repertoire or style, we are in a way claiming those things as a brand/image.

I'm arguing for a distinction between the artistic merit of a work exploring ideas or themes discovered via printed source and a work discovered via exposure to the work of another living magician.

I have shared positive light, see my message in the Our new arrivals thread. You usually create your illusions relating to things you enjoy, mine is with machinery.
There's a classic mechanical illusion I've seen many places - the water faucet that appears to hang in mid air with water flowing out of it. Of course, it's easy to figure that one out. LOL

You might like to research whose wonderful invention that was, and what they did with it when they invented it.

:)

I will do that, sweetheart.

Gold Whit. GOLD!

> Actually, the plot is the one thing that could be copyrighted.
> The method means little, and is usually not protected by law unless
> it is an original mechanical device that is patentable--truly rare
> in magic.

Can a plot be copyrighted or just a specific representation of that plot?

For example could anyone copyright the following plots:

1. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back.

2. Ex-athlete with a checkered past is forced to coach a taem of misfits.
Through their willpower, heart and determination and unconventional training
regime they manage to win their event with a last minute score using a bizarre
play that takes everyone (except the audience) by surprise.
They beat a team of top athletes with an evil coach in the final.
Our Hero coach learns something about himself along the way.

3. A cop two weeks from retirement is partnered with a hot shot rookie for the
most difficult case of his career. They hate each other at the start but love
each other by the end. They turning point is when they realise that they both
dislike their pain in the ass always angry captain, who in turn is getting
pressure from the Chief and the Mayor.

4. A maverick fighter pilot/race car driver/astronaut/lawyer/brain surgeon etc.
Living in the shadow of his dead father is pushed to his limits, and for a time
looks like he hasn't got what it takes. A collegue of his father has a chat
with him that changes everything and at the end of the movie he emerges as the
hero we always knew he was.

What we consider a plot in magic is often of the order of detail I've described above. Specific routines that put characters and dialogue on the frame of the plot are a different matter.

I don't know that there are any new plots left for the movies, there probably are some in magic, I don't know. But if someone sees your routine and lifts the basic plot, would copyright lay protect you?

Ultimately the punishment for a lack of originality in magic will be similar to the movies. When Hillary Swank stared in essentually a Remake of Dangerous Minds it got panned.

Rocky won a couple of oscars, but since then underdog sports movies (including Rocky Sequels) have been relegated to the second or third tier of moviedom.

-Rd

Magicmarker.

the idea itself can not be copyrightable. The tangible form in which it is written can be. Your posts are all copyrightable because they are in a tangible form.

If I cut and paste your post elsewhere I am in violation of copyright.

If, however, you tell me your idea, it is not copyrightable... ideas are not copyrightable.

Now the Rocky character is subject to trademarks, meaning I can not use that name for a character that depicts Rocky in a boxing movie.

I can certainly call a movie Rocky as long as it has nothing to do with Rocky Balboa. Perhaps my movie has a character named Rocky who is a geologist and studies rocks. Then again, there's Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Precisely the problem with defining what can and can't be protected in the work of a magician.

Let's pretend nobody has ever thought of doing an Ambitous card routine where the magician get's frustrated that he can't get the card to stay in the middle of the deck. He various ways of making sure it goes in the middle each making the rise to the top less likely, but each time the card defies him.

Now. If someone "invents" that plot and performs it, and word gets out. And suddenly every magician with a deck of cards is performing the ambitous card using that plot.

What can the performer do? The Ambitous card obviously can't be copyrighted. The various methods of bringing the card to the top might not even be the same as the methods the original magician used. The new and original thing he invented was the idea of the card defying the magician, but even that idea isn't new, Cardini had cards defying and puzzling him years ago. All that's new is the application to the Ambitous card routine.

And that "idea" sounds like a plot on par with the movie plots I described above, i.e. not copyrightable.

So unless someone actually lifts the magicians act word of word, it's unlikely he could do anything.

An example of a specific instance of a plot that might be copyrightable is Tommy Wonders Tamed Card. The piece of dialogue where he explains that his hobby is having a card selected at the same time each day. It's hard to see how that idea could be lifted and used elsewhere without an infringement being obvious, but I'm sure if someone put their mind to it they to get themselves onto legally safe ground.

Iwonder if the law would be much help at all in protecting a magician, since the methods are essentially secrets in the first place and the plot's can probably be re-used as easily as the plot to any movie.

I know many professional magicians don't even write out a script of their act.
Perhaps there's a case for writing a script even if you don't intend to use it as a script. You can only copyright something that has actually been given physical form, you have no grounds at all if you've never committed your script to paper.

Does anyone know if these are issues that have been thrashed out in the stand up comedy world? It seems to me the problems would be very similar.

-Rd

Use peer pressure to discourage "copying". Apply as much as you feel comfortable. It can get VERY cold for copyists if folks quit lauding them and start reacting to them as thieves.