talkmagic.co.uk

hey everyone, names chris and im 22. ive been doing magic since 10 and just started realy getting back into it. as i do searches for new tricks to start working on i have noticed a scary trend. people are taking others secrets and videotaping themselves explaining it and selling it. i only know this because i bought a great trick a while ago called float, and found it online from some other guy. different name, but same ... everything. can they legally do this or should i start reporting this kind of blaintent ripoff. you could tell the guy/kid wasnt a magician because he simply sucked at the trick. he was just trying to make a buck. how can this be legall!?!?!?!? is there any way to protect my own original routines that i am working on if i ever try to sell them?

Don't. Keep the good stuff to yourself.

Seriously though, it takes a long time before creating something worth selling. You'd have to check to make sure it's absolutely original (I recently came up with an effect that I was proud of only to find out it was done before) and have peers criticize it to death and perform it in a ton of situations. Once you do, to get back to the topic at hand,,, release it to working pros by not advertising it on places like youtube and hiding it. How do you hide magic knowledge? According to Kenton, put it in a booklet. Something about the size of a pamphlet. Kenton Knepper has a ton of great stuff hidden in plain sight like that. No one on Youtube is doing the brilliant spoon smooshing that Kenton made because it's in a cheap 25-ish page booklet. I digressed, but I hope I helped more.

but is what they are doing legal? with notes and written words its easy to copyright, but the entire dvd thing blurs the line. they just call it something else and market it as original.

Unfortunatly this is one of those murky areas. You can't copyright an idea so if this kid has given it a new name and changed the presentation slightly, he'll get away with it.

It's a real shame that this sort of thing goes on but it does, usually just someone out to make some easy money.

We've been here before. Search for "exposure youtube" and see the results. It's really not a big deal in my and many other's opinion.