talkmagic.co.uk

I'll repeat this here as the chat room doesn't seem an appropriate place. Mods feel free to delete either or both if it is felt to be inappropriate.





Interesting and obviously potentially dangerous to our art (although if they are showing advanced techniques then it is not going to be disadvantageous to the magic community as most things will be over the head of most lay persons).

However, I again take issue with the point that creators of effects should forever be financially credited with them. Fine if it is a significant body of work, but why is it ok for somone to produce a DVD showing an effect (novel or otherwise) and not for magicians to exchange techniques over the net?

And again the secrecy wrt this site. How can we judge whether it is appropriate or not without being able to view it? Perhaps a PM from the mods to all the members who are "trusted" (you can exclude me from this category if you like) and then we can make our own minds up and object to the place en masse, which would carry more weight.

Obviously I am referring to the couple of sites which have recently been criticsed for exposing secrets.

The secrets area (from what I understand as I have yet to be allowed in...) is NOT a place to discuss secrets, dispite its name. It has nothing todo with anything you were talking about really. It does not have todo with keeping the money in the pockets of the creators or ensuring their DVD does not hit limewire. It is a place for us to speak more liberally about what we do. Without the fear of some `13 year old who just watched Criss Angel or David Blaine do something wand wish to find out how its done.

Our secrets area is a place that allows us to talk more freely, discuss routines we are creating etc. There are no exposure of commercial effects inside these areas. It is just a place that allows us to have some privacy and not worry about talking in code as we sometimes do on open forums.

clearly I am not talking about "our" secrets area, rather the forums which have recently been purported to be giving away "secrets". Perhaps this should have been discussed in the other zone.

moved it if anyone's interested.

Are you contesting that the secret to tricks should freely be given out on a whim, to whoever is looking for them?

Why not just tell the secrets to the spectator that asks you how a trick is done? Is it not one in the same, if you tell him in the midst of your show -- or if he runs home and finds it on youtube?

I fail to see how so many can be against the prospect of crediting those who are helping to keep the art of magic an ever-changing landscape. Without their ingenuity and creativity, there would be no Stigmata, Fraud, or otherwise interesting effects.

So why not reward those who allow things to remain interesting?

Nope. I'm suggesting there is a balance to be had somewhere. Rewarding geunine originality is one thing, but there is so much dross out there it is beyond belief. Plenty of "original effects" are just rehashes given an alternte storyline and still charged at 15 or 20 quid.

Why is acceptable for a magician to demonstrate a series of unoriginal effects on a DVD and charge £27 for it and not acceptable for a magician to do the same thing on the web for free?

I'm not for a free for all where secrets are given out willy nilly to th public, but what's with this idea of possesion.? Suely we're all in the same field and should dissipate our kowledge.

I'll admit it.
I was secretly hoping someone was going to kick up a fuss and make some points and then you'd give up on this thread as it's now posted in three different places.

They didn't and you didn't, but now it's not happened, I'm rather glad because I've been given a chance to understand your point completely.

That said, I still don't agree with it.And, I must say, you sound kind of like a Perfect Communist. Why give people money for what we can all share.
Fair enough I suppose, but then again, we live in basically a capitalist world.

Magicians should share their new effects that they've spent hours upon hours coming up with yes. In exactly the same way that farmers should share the food they've spent hours upon and hours growing. But they don't.

Ces't la vie? Maybe.

By selling magic, you keep value in the art, and I'm not just talking about monetary value. The biggest secret in magic is that there are no secrets, it's one of the most written about subjects in the world, available in many different languages. There's no secrets there, just value in it.
Make people pay and the secrets stay with those willing to dedicate the money and time to master the effect. Show them online for free and the magic is lost. It becomesa widely available commodity like like everything else.
"Music was a product, now it's a service" stands true here applied to magic. Magic is a product, not a service. We shouldn't go give everything away for free just because it's "not right" to make money off it.

Why should people not be rewarded for their hours of effort and thought that goes into these things? People in factories are, why not magicians?

Also, people have to put money into things to get them off the ground. You have to speculate to accumulate as my dad says.
Craig Browning, a member here is a publisher of mentalism. He's also disabled which means he cant work.
Owing to piracy, he has very little income despite his years upon years of experience and ingenuity in making memory systems and readings systems.
Is that the "right thing"?
What is gonna make Craig keep producing when all he gets back from it is the knowledge that people are stealing his material? Nothing at all.

Same with any other magician. If no one buys it because everyone is having it for free, why should they keep putting their minds to it and making new material for us all? Whats to be gained from selling one copy that then makes its way onto the internet for all and sundry to have for free? Nothing.
Nothing except the knowledge that dozens of people are performing their magic having paid nothing for it. A nice thought, but unfortunately the real world doesn't work like that.
They'll stop selling them soon enough... and then we'll have no new material.

If we bite the hand that feeds us, we'll soon find ourselves going very hungry, very fast.

Nothing communisitc about the idea, I just think that we get a little too precious about these things at times. I certainly don't approve of a site where you can get everything for nothing, but there isn't anything for nothing anyway. Regardless of secrets being exposed, someone who is not interested beyond the bare bones of how something is done is going to get bored fairly quickly, and anyway we've all had people saying "I kow how it's done" and if we can't deal with them we may as well give it up anyway.

You make the point of saying that if someone is willing to pay for something it keeps the value in it. So if you introduce a hefty subscription to the site then that makes it ok? I make the point again as to why is it ok for a "famous" magician to make a dvd of non-original effects (no restriction on who buys it), but that it is not ok to get it for free.

Similarly, it is presumably ok for me to teach you how to do a trick having watched said DVD, but not ok for me to loan you or sell on the DVD. (not having a go at TM sales policy here, mkore making a general point).

And apologies to everyone for multiple postings. I have no problem with the erroneous ones being deleted.

It's quite simple really. You read the reviews. You find out which DVDs are just rip-offs and avoid them. You don't support the person who puts the unoriginal material out. Just because they put it on DVD it does not justify putting it up for free on the internet.

Anyway, a lot of the "famous" magicians who put out DVDs are famous in the art and respected for it because of their ability to innovate and push the artform forwards. It's when the material from said creators is published and distributed for free that is a big problem.

Ethically speaking it is not okay to go sharing magic you've learned off a DVD with your other magical friends for a similar reason as to why sales of DVDs are not allowed on here. It happens, however, but that doesn't make it right.

Peoples attitudes tend to be, if it is free, you don't have to worry or take care of it as much, compared to if you have to pay for it. Will laymen who find these sites take any care doing a "TRICK"? That is all it is. Do the secret grabbers, or the exposing sites take any notice of "PERFORMANCE"?

It's not worth me saying anything about the owners rights etc, because if you haven't figured this out by now, I would be wasting my time.

You say about magicians changing a trick a bit and making a DVD of it.

The change can be enough to help some people that have had problems on a certain technique. If these changes never happened, where would we be now? Once someone had come up with one force, that should have been it then? All the other forces are just another technique to get the required effect. Get real!

I must also say, in the DVD's I own, the magicians have given credit to anybody that had invented particular moves etc.

If someone does make a DVD which is pure dross, it wont cost many magicians any money anyway. The can read reviews on the good forums like TM and MB, then avoid buying them.

[quote]
Regardless of secrets being exposed, someone who is not interested beyond the bare bones of how something is done is going to get bored fairly quickly[quote]



Maybe, but would it be before or after they put on a c*** (not the best) show and put people off magic?

Why post the same topic 3 times? Are you trying to justify your reasonings for wanting everyone to have magic for free?

fletch wrote:Why is acceptable for a magician to demonstrate a series of unoriginal effects on a DVD and charge £27 for it and not acceptable for a magician to do the same thing on the web for free?

You're free to write reviews exposing the fact that a DVD contains unoriginal work. You might even say you have a moral duty to do so. You could even set up a review web site just to do that. But equally, you have no right to expose the actual content of an effect someone else is marketing, regardless of your opinion of its origin.

fletch wrote:I'm not for a free for all where secrets are given out willy nilly to th public, but what's with this idea of possesion.? Suely we're all in the same field and should dissipate our kowledge.

If you want to come up with an original effect and give it away, feel free to do so. The problem is that it takes time, effort, experience and in some cases money to get something really strong together. You're going to go out and perform this new effect, get an amazing response and feel great about yourself. Why should you get that personal benefit for free off the back of someone else? Then again, supposing someone gave away an effect and asked the recipients to pay later depending on the responses they got to performing it. But how many would simply take the effect and not bother to pay later? For the answer, look at how much stolen magic is available on p2p systems an you'll see that given the right to sell your intelligence, it's important to share reviews, not effects.

fletch wrote:Why is acceptable for a magician to demonstrate a series of unoriginal effects on a DVD and charge £27 for it and not acceptable for a magician to do the same thing on the web for free?

Unless the magician on the DVD has the permission of the originator of the effect it should not be accecptable. I believe that most countries have laws around copywritten material (sorry, I am not certain what term is used in the UK). After a certain number of years copywritten material falls into the "public domain" but until then, the originator owns all rights to that material and it cannot be sold or reproduced without their consent. On the other hand, if someone sells a DVD for "Mystico's Original Amazing Color Change" and it turns out that the DVD only teaches the Erdnase color change that fact should be called out, and one could even give legitimate sources to learn the Erdnase change, but unless you ahve the right to expose the secret it is not acceptable (imo).

OK all well and good that we're actually discussing the issue rather than just huffing and puffing about how terrible it all is.

A few more points. It was said (to paraphrase) "you read the reviews and then make your mind up. Unfortunately that doesn't always work 9in fact i'd say it works fairly uncommonly), reason being that a fair proportion of reviews written on here are written by people trying to up their post count and / or get into the restricted area. Maybe I'm just being cynical but i've bought a fair old number of things that have had rave reviews and should suit my style but have been frankly appalling. You could counter this by saying i should write a negative review myself, and indeed I have. Considering the amount of material reviewed, however, I think it is fair to say that there is a fair amount of dross out there.

Secondly, I really do fail to see past this individualistic attitude that it is "unethical" to share. Who says so exactly? Magicians create effects primarily because of a love of the art rather than to make a profit. If an effect is marvellous then the satisfaction of seeing that being performed should be enough. And if it is unetical for magicians to share effects, why is it ethical for a magician to run a magic course and charge for it?

It's not worth me saying anything about the owners rights etc, because if you haven't figured this out by now, I would be wasting my time.

And it is this type of patronising attitude which sums up my points.

All originators should be credited. The "intellectual property" argument is taken too far, however. There are very few "new" effects in reality, most "new" effects being new takes or updating of techniques which are rooted in the past.


I don't particularly expect anyone to agree with me on this as it is all down to either having a vested interest or wanting to ingratiate oneself with those who DO have a vested interest. However the knee jerk sanctimony coming from some becomes wearing.