Oh brother...

Please excuse me Violinguy for sticking up for what's right.
:-)

You sir are what's wrong with magic.



Yes so that makes it ok.

Listen guys, the concept of a floating or animated table has been around for sometime HOWEVER It's the gimmick that is the proprietary format. It's Losander's take on Tommy Wonders concept. Build your table all you want but you better come up with a different way to make it float or animate.

Or don't. If you are going to be so cavalier about making your own knock off then you (and all of the others who encourage this behavior) are not ever going to be competition for the working professionals out there.

Circle D'em Wagons boys! The "legends" is on the rampage. And they got warpaint.

I see a trend here, those of us who perform full-time as professionals value our ethics more. Dirk Losander is a great friend and has helped me in the past, I'm a proud owner of Losanders floating table, and I will never use another one created by anyone else. What some don't understand is that when you purchase Losanders Table you not only get a well crafted prop, you get his full performance and tips on how to make effect look believable which I believe is gold. Peter Loughran you are 100% correct.

Peter McMillan,
You, and others who think like you, are EXACTLY why I decided to avoid the Magic Café as much as possible.
I just cannot stomach this attitude towards creators.
Rather than waste my time explaining the obvious to you guys...because you will go to no end to justify your actions, think about this...
If original thinkers like Losander never created these wonderful ideas/methods...then there would be nothing to knock off.
But the downside is...you and others would have to THINK FOR YOURSELF!!!

don't bother responding as I will not be back on this thread...your posts pretty much cemented my decision to just leave this *** place for good.

Unreal.

In case no one noticed, the topic has moved to the ethics section of the magic Café. I'm going to guess this has been asked before but if someone owns Tommy Wonders' books and decides to create their own floating table, how is that different from what Losander did?

Also, someone else is asking the strict legal interpretation which is that of course the method isn't patented. Chance Wolf has left the building and it seems that the thing he fears is a world where a magician copies Losanders design entirely and then markets it and nobody cares since there is a product on the market that costs less.

Why is this not obvious? You gonna build this thing? Don't come here and tell US!

Doug

An invisible hand sweeps through the thread, the hand of Losander's nemesis. Invisible because it may not exist.

I cannot understand why Losander ever sold this. The moralists in every Losander thread argue that there is some greater motivation for us as magicians, a motivating force more noble than money which ought guide us. If it exists then why did Losander sell his effect? How come he didn't just give it away to the most trustworthy souls he came across? The answer, always, is money. Losander wanted the income from thousands of magicians around the globe performing his act, making money enough to buy his tables and then the better one and then the best one. It's a business where Losander doesn't even need to perform to make money. A rise above working entertainer.

Not that it matters, but if Losander has risen above the pay grade and has climbed the ladder to businessman then he is governed by business. Every cheap floating table out there is the potential to express to the world the Joy that Losander discovered and formed into the table. Every cheap knockoff is also a chance for someone to perform it badly. It seems that the issue here is someone might do Losander's bit and might do it badly, but that would exist in any kind of world, including one where the only magicians with floating tables were the ones that paid for it.

These are questions that should be addressed to Losander. I would be curious to see his take on this. And, I might add, not everyone is a money grubber. There are other motivations to market your product. In this case, I cannot speak for Losander.

Doug

You mean to tell me Dougini that you own the losander table and didn't specify this information be included in your shipment?

How many reasons are there for someone to market their product? Not many.

5Magic ethics are only personal opinion. The legal system requires a huge infrastructure. Courts, Judges, Lawyers, federal law, state law, etc. The unique magic ethics has none of that. It is entirely dependent on a collective consciousness and personal opinion.Threads like this are where those discussions occur - but they will forever be personal opinion. Without written law and judges to decide, a system by which these finer points of ethics can be DECIDED doesn't exist.

I support everyone's right to agree or disagree. The debate is the thing.

What if(in my own case) You own an original table, but the table dose not fit the theme of your act, and one builds their own table to better fit the theme in question? I feel in that right you have the ability to do so. If not then we all should just stop being original and just perform what we are given.
But all in all, Great job on the table, it looks great. My only thought is in agreeance with others on this thread. the legs are 2 small and scrawny in preportion with the table. an hour glass shape is better to go with. it looks more elegent and logically looking based on the public idea of physics and equal weght distribution.

Just my thoughts =D

It's done all the time. Key point being that you own an original table.

Doug

This “gentleman” is now SELLING his feeble knock-off tables on Facebook! Astonishingly immoral nerve in my book.

And why has no one mentioned that this monstrosity looks NOTHING like a table any audience has ever seen in real life?

“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”

For those of you who think that magical ethics and real life ethics are different things... I cannot help you.

Stealing is wrong.

You don't need a "huge infrastructure," legal or otherwise, to know that. It is not biblical in nature. it is a simple innate feeling. Legality is not the last word in ethics, and opinions CAN be wrong. If legality was the last world in ethics, then the extremes of the worst of the worlds religions would be fine... and if opinions couldn't be wrong then the same arguments could be made from the other side.

I totally understand the need to build something... either for my own use or just to see if I can. However.. it should be a goal when one does so to make improvements in method or design. You've heard me say this very same thing before... on this very thread.

To make what is obviously in inferior product, by the admission of the original poster, is one thing. But to SELL them is stealing. If you do not believe it's stealing, you need to check your own ethics to wonder why.

ViolinKing... your ethical arguments are thin at best, and it's obvious to me that you don't really believe what you are typing. To claim that every crappy knock off is a testament to Losander's Joy is simply dishonest philosophy. What these knock offs are is a slap in the face to the man that took years to design, learn how to work with the proper materials, perfect the floating gimmick, spend years detailing his performance to a level where he thought it was ready to share.

This thread makes me sad, but at the same time, I sense it's dishonesty and argument for the sake of argument. However, there is a time for truth and when truth is told, the origianl poster is making a piece of crap, and selling it without thought of design, improvement on method, and by his own admission, is selling one that may not work becuase of his lack of knowledge of the orginan's gimmick. If he's selling a prop that doesn't work, that's called stealing.

This table uses Vandoren's book/plans on building a floating table. The original certainly looks better in person than the one in the photo. Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZtIc6FVLI

But, from an ethics point of view, Losander did not invent this floating table. He did however perfect (not invent, perfect) the gimmick and he sales the best tables on the market. I know this table can use 3 different ways to float, so in my personal opinion, if you take the existing floating table and improve the method (like Losander did) then have at it. While Losander did not invent it, you will catch hell in the magic community because he is well liked and people just assume since he sales the floating table, he must have invented it. I am on the fence on this one. But ethics in magic is a very fuzzy thing! It all depends on who is doing the "ripping off". A perfect example is Mark Kalin/Kevin James Train Appearance. Murray did that on AGT and they ran with HIS trick. But, just try to copy Mark's spiker or Kevin's snow animator and they will go after you. So, if you are well known, the magic community looks the other way. Like I said, fuzzy ethics!

Here is my take: Many magicians have built their own Sawing a woman in two, Sub trunks, Square Circles, etc,etc. I don't have a problem with that. BUT what I do have a problem with is when you copy someones Prop and then try to get a free ride off their coat tails because of their success. Had you built a 3 legged table and said you came up with your own gimmick that would be great. Now we have an inferior table being bought by many people who because of the cheap price will probably never give it the practice that it deserves, or worst yet the gimmick is off slightly or the weight/balance is off slightly and it wont look as good as an original. When that happens then many people in the audience will catch on and then assume all floating tables are the same old thing...

Losander actually sells a DVD to teach people who have knock off tables to float their tables better. Do you know anyone else that does that for people who have stolen their idea? NO... That is definitely taking the high road on his part. I have a Losander table (just got it) and it is extremely well made and well balanced. It looks like a real antique table made by a real wood worker, unlike the one in the picture above that looks like it was made in shop class. As far as price goes instead of complaining about the high price, just wait till a used one comes up, like I did, then you get a great product at a really good price. In Addition Losander has a trade in/upgrade program. Does the OP have that? Losander has a very high quality dvd that teaches you how to make this effect truly magical. Does the OP have that? Losander can fix or replace your table for a reasonable fee if you break it. Can the OP do that? Well you get the idea... You get what you pay for.
Sorry for the rant, I'll go home now.

While Losander's products are nice HE DID NOT INVENT THE FLOATING TABLE!! He actually took is from another magician in Europe, whom I have spoken to. The other magician has proof, which I have seen, of himself in a newspaper article floating a table.

If we are going to "ethical" then Los Ander is not the horse to bet on.

Losander has popularized the floating table, but in no way invented it. He did make it popular.

.

One might be careful making brash statements and condemning people when we haven't researched it properly. THAT IS REALLY UNETHICAL.

To all the unethical people who are condemning the making of the floating table, I located the article that proves Losander did not create the floating table.

The first floating table, using a zombie gimmick (that I have located) was an unknown Albanian magician in Yugoslavia in the late 1970’s. I am not saying this was the first, just the earliest I know about. He sold one, and gave permission to make them, to a fellow European, from Republic of Slovenia, Vladimir Mikek (Stage name: Wladimir). In 2007 Vladimir Mikek gave me permission to make floating tables. According to Vladimir Mikek, Losander never even asked permission to make floating tables when he moved to the US. If anyone is making a knock-off, it is Losander.

Here is Vladimir Mikek floating a table in 1982: http://slomagic.com/floatingtable.htm . Notice the table pedestal has a seam where it breaks down in two pieces. This guy knew Losander when Losander was 4 y/o!

Interestingly enough, Losander admits the floating table has been around awhile on the Viking Magic website ( http://www.vikingmagic.com/?nd=full&key=1009 ) (Sept. 2007) “The Floating Table has been with us for over 100 years but not until Dirk Losander's Floating Table has there been even the slightest improvement. It is the best Floating Table you have ever seen.”

Now, with that aside, ethics are a personal thing, not a weapon. They vary from individual to individual, and most people hold contradicting ethical views on many things. This is why ethics are not laws. Legally (in the US) you CAN make an exact copy of anything for personal use. Copyrighted material can be altered slightly to make it legal (the amount varies, depending on the article and the time).

In my experience in public and private, the people who yell the loudest about ethics have the biggest problems.

Now if you want to buy a table from Losander, even when he did "steal" the idea (by some of the poster's definitions), I have no problem. If you like him, go for it, if you think his is better, go for it! Just don't perpetuate the lie that he created them. Even Losander does not say this. So get off your ethical high-horse, you have &^%&^ on your face. Also you need to apologize to the young man for being such *** HOLES.