Ok, I've been doing this for almost 40 years, and I don't get it: I spend a fortune on an effect, practice it for a year, and then find out that I need permission (?) from the creator to perform it in various situations? Why? Don't performing rights come with the purchase (and if not, why)? Lee

Well, I know in some cases performance rights are limited because the creator doesn't want the trick to be seen everywhere. It's not uncommon to see restrictions regarding online videos, TV appearances, etc.

I am not a lawyer, so this could be wrong and is not advice of any sort, but if the restrictions are not made explicitly clear before money changes hands, they are not valid. In other words, it has to be on the product page, or made clear on the purchase page or contract or whatever, BEFORE any money changes hands. If not, they are not valid as it's seen as changing the contract after the fact.

I have recently bought two tricks that limited the performance rights. The same as Chris said, they were limiting ability to perform it on tv. But they were also trying to limit the ability for someone to take their idea and profit by building a copy and selling them.

I’m not a lawyer either.

I have recently bought two tricks that limited the performance rights. The same as Chris said, they were limiting ability to perform it on tv. But they were also trying to limit the ability for someone to take their idea and profit by building a copy and selling them.

I’m not a lawyer either.

Yes I agree RMV I have seen this with many newer effects now it is becoming a standard disclosure.

I've often thought of it as being analogous to music.

You buy the album. You buy the sheet music.

Does that entitle you to perform the song in clubs? On stage?

On television... for money?

And I guess the same could be said for plays. Or any other form of theater, really.

It's more clearly defined in other forms of theater, I think. You are not allowed to perform one person's material for money in most other theatrical forms. For example, there are lawyer's who's job it is to travel around and find restaurants that are playing music without the rights to it.

The claims of reserved performance rights are most often completely unenforceable. Methods absolutely cannot be protected or restricted. Scripts presentations theoretically can be, but only if they rise to the level of a self-standing creative work of art, as Teller's "Shadows" does, and that is very rare. For the vast majority of material that is claimed to be restricted, it's only a disincentive that would never hold up in court. Like a house with a "beware of dog" sign that has no dog.

This problem has never been of any concern to me. I've never "bought" any "latest & greatest"!

(TV hadn't been "invented" yet!) --And, I learned, very early, that one could not buy TRICKS (sorry RMV) 'cuz TRICKS, somewhat like MUSIC, only exist while they are being performed. --AND, sorry, ESPMAGIC, EFFECTS cannot be bought, either! The EFFECT, quite simply, IS WHAT THE SPECTATOR PERCEIVES!!!

One can buy PROPS and/or SECRETS. USING those PROPS and/or SECRETS, one can PERFORM a TRICK. If one's PERFORMS the TRICK, with a good PRESENTATION, one's spectators MAY be ENTERTAINED. (MAGIC is NOT INHERENTLY ENTERTAINING!)

MOST of the TRICKS that I PERFORM, which helped me make a good living, for most of my life (FIFTY YEARS on the road) are PERFORMED with GENERIC PROPS (like silks, rope, silver dollars, "golf" balls, etc. and, PRINCIPLES that I learned from a naturopathic physician, from Delavan, Illinois. His "Course in Magic" was first published in 1927. His name was Harlan Tarbell. I do use a few "DESIGNATED PROPS, like an egg bag, three 8" rings, and, occasionally, a Disecto, but the PROPS, DESIGNATED, OR GENERIC, are much less important than the PRESENTATION. (My mentors, insisted that, "It aint WHAT ya do, it's HOW ya do it.")

BTW, you, perhaps like me, have noticed that PRINCIPLES don't change! Newer materials are invented, and, sometimes the way that those PRINCIPLES are used, may change, but, PRINCIPLES don't change! (I learned, "eons" ago, that ESSENCES ARE IMMUTABLE!)

Fitzkee lists eighteen or nineteen, EFFECTS. (Stewart James, in the late '30s, published (IF I remember correctly, "SEFALALGIA".) As part of the routine, Stewart used a "BOX". Dean Dill, "dressed up" that box. It was a fine PROP! (The EFFECTS perceived were pretty much the same.)

I can understand why music and play scripts earn royalties, so I don't PERFORM TRICKS that limit where they can be PERFORMED.

Times have changed over the last 40 years mainly related to media and access. Nowadays a performance of purchased material can easily go up on youtube, go viral and easily be seen on other medias, so creators are paying more attention to performance rights.

This combined with more and more performers just performing things directly as they are on the purchased product, rather than learning it and creating their own presentation and interpretation of the effect also heavily plays into the fold.
Also, while most effects do not openly say this, performance rights when offered often only apply to the original performer. If you purchase they effect used or second-hand, even if it came with performance rights, they are not transferred to second or additional purchasers when bought.

I too was surprised to learn this, but I guess it is just the state of the way things are in our wider-access world these days. With national and international shows like America's Got Talent, Brittian's Got Talent, etc. things can be much more exposed and control of access harder to limit and control thean in the past.

It would take an "army" of attorneys to enforce this! heehee!

Nowadays tricks come out which even restrict performing on YouTube. I think that's pretty silly because why sell the trick in the first place if you want to maintain that high level of exclusivity!?
Anyway I don't really bother about such silly things and go about performing everywhere. If the creator ever does contact me, I'll take the YouTube video down.

They can’t restrict you from putting it on YouTube or tv, let’s say you’re performing a magic effect and somebody in the crowd with their phones is videotaping it and put it on their YouTube channel how can you get in trouble for that your first amendment right will protect you along with the ninth amendment right or amendment IX, But then again if your performances filmed on a cruise ship and international waterways there’s issues there as well and then there’s the issues that the creator has to prove that you’re using his method.

An effect with limited performing rights is bu*****t, just don't purchase it.

If you think about and do the same effect, with your own solution, no one can limit you

Assuming those limitations are enforceable (huge assumption), the solution is obvious: either perform old public domain material, or be original. The former is easy, the latter is far better. So, rather than gripe, save your money and be an original artist or a tired old hack. Either avoids the limitations. You decide which you want to be.

Personally, I think the only thing worse than paying for someone else's material to perform is to pay for the material and not even be able to perform it.

Another take on "permission" is to only perform for those who have given you permission to do so.

If your audience appreciates awe&wonder, knows you are planning to present something of the nature and provide focused attention,
then their "expectation of magic" will make it so. No need to constantly buy new stuff. Six basic sleights and a world of available objects are all that you need.

An opinion, of course - that the problem is the cry of folks "entertain me" when they have no capacity to entertain themselves.
If you buy into this "want" you will feel the need to buy an endless supply of new junk with little magic in them - and pretend that puzzle or skill demo is magic.

Those marketing "restrictive performing rights" are playing on your perception that "different" is "better." No need to buy into that thinking -
especially as a "quick fix." Be creative in choosing an audience that actually wants magic.

On the flip side, if you feel that "it's all about entertainment," then pay the price of being on that train. Even then, you don't have to purchase exclusive items in the dining car.

Hello Lee,

All Black Artefacts effects come with permission to perform them anywhere and on any media. There are no restrictions on TV rights etc. What you don't get is the right to divulge the secret. I think that's fair.

Keith Hart