talkmagic.co.uk

copyright wrote:Pirated Magic is all DVD and downloads and I've yet to see anything worth copying, let alone paying for.

copyright wrote:

Acidus Globus move... something that's been commercially available for less than a year

Anyone who sells paper-tearing 'moves' is an enterprising person indeed, anyone who buys them, well

I wish I had the low opinion of people who buy magic that I have now back when I first discovered what this guy has given a name to - I'd be tens of dollars rich and complaining about kids on YouTube

There are people with a passion for magic, who enjoy discussing and sharing ideas and then there are those with an eye for a quick buck. Sadly, internet forums are full of the latter and their devoted fans. In my own field we mock those who 'never had an idea they didn't publish' - and what a load of rubbish has been published, magic is no different.

I applaud those craftsmen who can turn out fine quality magic props and tools. I don't, for instance, begrudge John Riggs a single penny for his impression boards. But I've got no sympathy for those 'magicians' peddling their simple ideas on the mulititude of DVDs and downloadable videos currently available.

Magicians who do DVDs and downloads have kids who do DVDs and downloads.

gunnarkr wrote:Lately we have had a flood wave of "Crazy Magic Hatters" from Wonderland, not looking for Alice, but they seem to have the desire to reveal magic and make the knowldege known for over half of the population around them. This attitude puzzles me. They are a source for the hecklers and "irritating relatives" that like to show the rest, they know how the magic trick is done, even though they have never tried it.

Ethics of magicians are the same all over... or you are not a magician.
One of the golden rules is, never to reveal your secret, be it sleighs or methode.

Interesting take on the "magicians" code although I think you will find that it says never reveal your secrets to laymen

But would we then get any new magicians in the world?

Oh yes we would. There are always a few that go to libraries and find books there. There are always those who know somebody that can help them out, and a lot of magicians teach magic to an "apprentice" that will become a magician and keep the secrets for years and years. Person to person, the way it has been for centuries, I guess.

A very romantic view but the fact is the magic is now avilable to be learnt by anybody with a internet connection,credit card and DVD player, you don't need to have any ethics or morals and you don't need to know anybody who practices magic. thats the way it is.. It has nothing to do with the ethics or morals of magicians its all about MONEY. once you realise that all the other arguments go out the window on this subject. It has been said many times on these and other forums that if you want to keep a secret then don't retail a dvd or download with those secrets on it... simple.

But with the Internet, things have changed. It's so easy now to put up a web page or a video and expose magic.

Too true, the main cause of all these teenage magic forums is our good old friend ellusionist, who direct there marketing at..surprise surprise teenage boys... and great marketing it is too just look at what happens, they encourage the making and submission of videos to themselves in the hopes of marketing the cream of the crop for profit. then they are suprised when the internet ends up with magic exposure plastered all over it. Its as clear as day to me the reasons but maybe I'm just being cynical?.

Some think this is natural and you can't do anything to stop it. I just think we need a bit of an attitude change, mainly from (as it appears) teen boys. Some of them violate the law, by posting copyrighted material and are so naive, they think they can change the name of, for example: Stigmata to Stigm@t@ to free them for lawsuit.

I think you will find as far as the law is concerned they have nothing to worry about, there has never been a lawsuit filed against anyone with connection to this sort of thing and until the law is updated and tested in court there never will be, if you are refering to a plan devised by another forum that nearly closed down due to legal threats from ellusionist then you will be unhappy to hear that the owners just gave the keys so to speak to a 14 year old and it just opened its doors as before. I'm not saying its right as the forum in question has no screening of any sort but I very rarely see more than maybe 50 people actually contributing to it and as usual most of what they think they know isn't right anyway.

Of course there have been a few, and mind you... a few magicians that have violated the ethcis, but not by using the Internet.
No they just made whole tv programmes about it and showed them on primetime tv all over the world to millions and millions of people. Personally much worse in my eyes but again has it done any harm to anyone here?

The Internet posting violators have argued: Why can't we post those things? You can't copyright a move! But they seem to forget that some people make their living from performing magic. Others make living from creating magic and they are being robbed by those violators

Let's take some examples:

There is a huge difference between, for example:

- a grandfather teaching his grand daughter some magic skills.
- a magician that sits in the back room of a magic shop and calls a kid over to teach him some good sleights (true story).
- somebody that goes to the library to find 1 or 2 good books on magic and takes them home for a month.


and then

- some teens posting 100's or 1.000's of sleights, secrets and even copyrighted tricks on a public website, accessable to any laymen that want to be able to heckle a street performer. Some have even posted training vids from PenguinMagic or Ellusionist directly on their websites, which is actually a criminal act.

Do you think the give a monkeys tit about it?.. their TEENAGERS thats what they do... rememeber you were one once as was I and I did lots of stupid things.

The ones in the first group are basicly on "one on one" basis, while the 2nd group is revealing magic to tens of thousands of Internet users.
10's of thousands?... possibly or maybe a couple of hundred spotty teenagers and their mates that you or I will never have the misfortune to meet of perform for... hopefully

One of the teens argued: Why should magic only be for the rich that can afford to buy boks, DVDS etc.?

I say to contradict that: Why should anything in the world only be for those who can afford to buy it? Shouldn't we just be allowed to steal or take what we like and use anything as we please? I'd love to get a new Jaguar, should I steal one, just because I want to?
No, magic should be for everybody to enjoy, but only for a few to perform.

Or... A friend of mine is so poor, he can't afford to buy the Harry Potter books. Shouldn't I just steal some for him or even make photocopies in the local book store, for him to read? Tsk... tsk... tsk... How naive attitude!

There is a petition here, with almost 1.200 people, asking YouTube to stop revealing magic. That should apply to any other page that teaches (read=reveals) magic.

And heres one website that has over 1200 members that only share magic releated files.... so what? maybe they will sign a counter petition? who cares either way no one is going to listen to either side

And there was a brilliant suggestion on TM, asking magicians to change one and one word in Wikipedia, where magic is explained in details. I tried it the other day, changed 3 words on the page about The Pass, and now a week later they are still as I left them, making it impossible for anybody to learn it from that page.

This one I have a problem with, at the end of the day wiki is meant to be an online enclopedia of free knowledge, moves like the pass are in the public domain therefore should be avilable to anyone. if you were talking about a marketed effect then it would be different.

But I think the bottom line is that anybody who wants to relate to magic and call himself/herself a magician, should keep the magician's code and not reveal magic. The others are not worthy to call themselves magicians.

seige wrote:
The question of 'who should be allowed to be a magician' crops up here.

Let's look at a small example, and compare:

JOE BLOGGS sees a Criss Angel show. Suddenly, he's filled with enthusiasm. A quick dabble into Google gives him pages of magic resources and online shops. But wait... JOE BLOGGS is a schoolkid, he's got no money. But he sure knows where he can download ebooks and movies... So he does... piles of them. And starts skimming through to learn something.
After 3 years, he's still learning, and studying hard.
After 5 years, he's performing. He's never spent a penny on magic in his life, and yet he's now making a living from it. And he's just become Young Magician of the Year.


Meanwhile...
JOHN DOE sees a Criss Angel show. Suddenly, he's filled with enthusiasm. A quick dabble into Google gives him pages of magic resources and online shops. JOHN DOE is a schoolkid, he's got no money.
But instead of an Xbox 360 for his birthday present, he carefully selects some magic items... books, dvds and tricks.
Suddenly, he's hooked. Can't get enough. By 18 years of age, he's earning his own money, and can't wait for payday to get the latest effect or a new book.
After 3 years, he's still learning, and studying hard.
After 5 years, he's performing. He's always invested well in magic—there's been turkeys along the way—but the dedication and money spent have paid off, as he's just become Young Magician of the Year.



So...
Two pretty similar stories. But is Joe Bloggs entitled as much as John Doe to become a magician? Joe has stolen the secrets, John has paid.

They've both put equal amounts of time and effort in, but wheras Joe invested nothing more than hours spent downloading the stuff from filesharing forums, John invested money in magic books.

...and...
BOTH of them can 'talk the talk', and BOTH of them can 'walk the walk', as they've both learned from the same sources essentially.

It's SO hard to draw a line through.

lindz wrote:Dont agree with:

copying and redistribution of disks, books etc


Do agree with:


Borrowing dvds or books from the societys library or off of someone who attends providing you know they are dedicated or vica verca and i say this because ive brought so many rubbish dvds its unbelivable, so if i borrow one off of someone who is in the society and watch it at home yes i might get the tricks for free but if its good any way i will buy it myself so i always have that reference and if it was rubbish and i dont get anything off of it i wouldnt buy it because i would never use it anyhow so i havent got nothing from it anyway. Saying this i would never borrow anything to someone who was not in a society because i wouldnt know whether there dedicated to magic or just a free loader.

I didn't quote the whole post as I agree with almost all of it but this comment made me think, I am a member of a local magic society and we have library that you can borrow books dvd's etc from and of course everyone uses it, Its a great resource of information however does this mean that if you find a forum of like minded magic enthusiasts who due to geographical positions can't meet face to face does it then become ok to share the dvd's/books between each other across the internet? If not why not?

seige wrote:For the best part, I agree that people's interest fitters away. But for some super-cool creative brains, the 'digging for secrets' path MIGHT be the way into magic. And they may even go on to greater things. Everyone needs a catalyst.

My post implies that what's to stop a magic pirate becoming the next top-act? Or what's to stop them becoming the next magic mind genius?

As I stated, whether you're buying, or stealing, you're using the same resources, walking the walk and talking the talk in the same circles. Ergo, either way, you are 'entitled'.

It may sound like I'm condoning or even recommending piracy. That's far from my point here.

My point is that there's no 'school for magicians' or 'degree in XCM' or suchlike. A magician's qualification is non-academic and as such, how a magician becomes a magician and gains the right to use the title is a very grey area indeed.

Wake up and smell the coffee, people. In this internet age, nothing is sacred anymore. Lines have been crossed, taboos are no more, and what we once held sacred or hallowed is now quite simply uncontrollably open-plan.

It's an evolutionary step, but as has been said before, it's not going to KILL magic as an industry. And as more and more freeloaders come on board, magicians will have to be more creative and doubly inventive to keep one step ahead of the game.

And they will stay ahead of the game, because they're passionate about what they do.

Internet revo/evolution... reminds me of threats of a 'paperless office' becoming the norm... fax machines being phased out and A4 copier paper manufacturers going bust overnight. The humble pen and paper disappearing from our lives.

But our offices, and I guarantee everyone else's, are if anything more laden with paper than anything else.

An exposureless magic community? Nah. It ain't gonna happen I'm afraid.

Marvell wrote:
I don't fear reveals. If people want to know how something is done, then they will find out. What will they do with this knowledge? Will they travel around waiting for magicians to do things and expost the secrets, I think not.
Couldn't agree more a point a lot of people worry far too much in my eyes

copyright wrote:Pirated Magic is all DVD and downloads and I've yet to see anything worth copying, let alone paying for.
I'm guessing you haven't seen the any magic based sharing sites.. they don't all do just ellusionist stuff, you can in fact get as near as damm it anyrthing that has been published whether it be a book or dvd

I'm quite shocked and amazed that someone of your genius and obvious superiority has NEVER produced a single thing for the magic or psychic entertainer's community... I can tell that's the case because you are more or less defending theft and your sympathy lends serious question when it comes to what I've suggested already; that you do not pay full price on products or else you wrongly gain the information via another route hence your smug retort and obvious disrespect of intellectual property when it comes to this craft.

Again excellent food for thought.. if say for instance the magic pirate had access to 400 dvd's of instructional magic then surley he would have more than enough knowledge to maybe pick out the snippets and gems of wisdom and make a fantastic show for himself probably even being able to get away with saying its his own show due to the vast amount of material he has access to

lindz wrote:Wow wukfit that post was amazing and now i have a blimen neckache from so much constant reading

Craig Browning wrote:
Bottom line sir, you're a blow hard and in so many words, an admitted thief... how else would you know how AG works and talk trash about it unless you purchased it... and you're not bitching loud enough for that to be the case so you're just playing arm chair expert here.

Now IF you really are someone of import, come clean and quit playing games... like most people in these forums we've found that most folks that use bogus names are full of smelly brown stuff... the internet being such a wonderful venue for folks to be who they are not... something I just don't do I'm afraid... I don't hide a single thing about myself...

although I would love to see some more input on this fasinating subject hopefully without resorting to personal insults Very Happy