talkmagic.co.uk

Duplicity wrote:Bobby_Cat - nothing to do with trying to sound profound at all. However, it is all about laying out a real example. This has happened. It will continue to happen. In fact, despite your condecending tone this has been an interesting debate.

An interesting comment, however it would seem to apply more so to your previous posts, especially your somewhat "attitude laden" early ones.

Duplicity wrote:Maybe everything should be free and we can all just share all that we do. That way, we may all starve together whilst watching our pirated dvds.

Duplicity wrote:Are you being serious? Just because i am committed to something shouldn't give me any special "rights" to have something for free. I note your website in your profile - a free way of advertising perhaps?

My web site in my profile is an attempt at free advertising? Am I serious? Attitude aside, I do value your opinions. You make some interesting points.

Duplicity wrote:People, whether this includes yourself or not i do not know - but a lot of people do want to "be like Derren Brown". Therefore they will download, buy cheap ebooks that promise his skills and abilities for $6 and all kinds of detritus that will help fool themselves into thinking they are more Derren-like.

For sure, no doubt.

Duplicity wrote:That includes buying his books, or downloading the illegally. The "market" is to a certain degree, a "be compared to Derren" market. I bet a good percentage of magicians bought the book thinking the same. Only to be dissapointed with the methodology for certain effects and ideas.

"You mean..it's not real mind reading via NLP and body language?! Quick! I must sell it!"

Yes, the disappointment that hard work, study, preparation, props etc are necessary.

Duplicity wrote:I do not understand why this concept is so over-complicated. Someone wrote a book and wanted it released to within certain guidelines/amounts - once they were all sold, that should be the end of it.

I think the perception that it's overcomplicated relates to a misunderstanding. I am not talking about the kids who will go to a Torrent site, download anything that interests them "this week" and discard it the following week. I think we can accept the nature of Pure Effect is not really suitable for your "average" Torrent downloader.

Duplicity wrote:However, as stated - since a huge amount of people wanted to be seen as a Derren-a-like, or rather, compared to him in the same breath and thus inflate their own ego; the torrents and so on where born.

I really think Torrents existed before Derren Brown. If we ignore the kids downloading such things and just consider what's left, people who do it are to at least to some extent influenced to do it due to the highly inflated price of buying the book legitimately which most people seem to think is a value well beyond the book's worth.

The problem is, this book by it's very nature is full of "secrets". Therefore, a thorough pre purchase review that would ordinarily allow someone to evaluate cost VS gain is not really possible. A $50 "punt" is one thing... a $200 - $400 "punt" is something else. If that is not an environment that encourages people to look for alternative means of getting the book I don't know what is.

Add to this the fact that Derren Brown himself... The AUTHOR, is seeing no direct benefit as a result of the inflated price, although one could argue he is seeing an indirect benefit in terms of inflated sales of his subsequent books as a result of the high price of his old ones. My point is, if he is to accept the gain (increased interest and sales of Tricks of the Mind) as a result of the high price of Pure Effect, I believe he must also accept people will endeavor to acquire Pure Effect by less expensive means.

As soon as the announcement was made, "This book will never be reprinted, place your orders now", the Torrents were a sure thing. I am not suggesting the announcement should not have been made, it was a smart move that had the effect of instantly increasing the price of PE and generating additional interest in any subsequent products, I think we can see that is not the only effect it had though.

Duplicity wrote:I also feel that you should stop seeing it as a business, and more of an appreciation of one man's ideas. If you were to release a mentalism book, would you just want to make a bucket full of cash - or would you rather people with the correct skillset and knowledge appreciate your years of hard work?

When Johnny Depp started out as a struggling actor, he accepted any part he got cast for. Later in life he had more success and eventually he found himself well known, wealthy and able to be more selective. Interesting he talks about the "art", the "craft", the "inspiration" far more now than he ever did as a young actor. Heck, he'd even accept a part for minimum wage if he really liked the script... all for the sake of the "art". I imagine Derren Brown thinks more about the "art" now than he may have 10 years ago. That's just my opinion, I have no proof that is the case.

Man, I'd definitely go for the bucket full of cash. As long as my work is out there and I'm credited for it, if I know I released worthy concepts to the magic world, my own certainty is enough, and the compliments of peers are an added bonus.

Oh, I downloaded the book I think, months ago, but thought that it was not really from Brown ... maybe it was another book .. although I sort of seem to recall that the title was the same ... Nope, nope .. according to me it was a guy describing a lot of Brown's stuff and how it according to him was done .. Or was it just me being in some fuzzy state again thinking it was another guy (my brain is wonderfull .. it does not only spin but it can cloud up as well .. almost like the weather ... brain weather .. )

I didn't mean that torrents were born out of Derren. Just that the torrents of derren's work became available once he appeared on the television.

As for attitude; we all have them. Just some are classier than others.

Duplicity wrote:As for attitude; we all have them. Just some are classier than others.

You're spot on there.

Before I throw in my two shillings worth, may I just say that I am glad to see lively, intelligent discussion taking place on talkmagic. It’s nice to know that even though some of us have radically opposing views on this, after four pages of replies it hasn’t descended into a flame war.

So, admitting that I am acting as a further devil’s advocate, let’s go:

The issue here is twofold, the legal and moral implications of downloading out of print material. I personally believe the legal side to be trivial, so let’s get it out of the way.

If you buy the book, you can read it. You cannot reproduce it, be it for personal gain or not. Copyright is copyright, and irrespective of profit, it’s illegal to scan/photocopy copyrighted material (I think technically this is true whether or not it’s ever been published, as sticking “© Serendipity 2008” on the back of a piece of original writing makes it mine). You can resell the book, for as much or as little as you like, and you can give the book itself away to someone/a charity shop.

But that’s the boring side of the argument, because noone is going to change any of that, and (as Queen of Clubs alluded to) just because something is illegal, doesn’t make it necessarily wrong. This is where the moral side comes in.

I perform as part of a duo of magicians and we share all our material and effects. As a result I’ve read a lot of magic books I didn’t buy, and I let Rhys (my partner in crime) read a lot of books I’ve spent my own money on. Technically it could be argued that in doing this we are denying a lot of magicians revenue they perhaps deserve, but realistically I doubt anyone would blink an eyelid at me sharing books with my best friend and business partner.

Now for argument’s sake, imagine there was a couple of pages teaching a sleight or something (in the Pure Effect example, you could use the Figaro transfer as a nice example). Is it wrong for me to scan in the instructions from a copy of PE and send them to my partner? Would it be any different to teaching it to him myself? Remember we’re talking about morality, not legality. How about if I met a talented yet financially impoverished young magician who was eager to learn from me? Am I allowed to teach him the Figaro transfer from my own knowledge? Is it ok as long as I don’t give him a photocopy of the instructions? What if he writes down what I tell him?

I know that’s a lot of questions and a lot of spurious situations, but with issues like this you have to get down to the point at which suddenly something becomes “Wrong”. How can it be that the simple act of copying a page makes the transfer of knowledge to another morally wrong?

The really interesting thing about this discussion is that it largely removes the issue of loss of profit to the person publishing the work. Whilst I understand the principle that some things are out of print for a reason, I personally (and I’ve said this before, and I know it’s contentious) believe that in an ideal world magic should be free for anyone willing to go looking for it, especially if the manufacturer is not going to make a loss.

that's a very good question. How moral is it to teach someone a sleight if it's not yours? If you haven't paid for it? How moral would it be for me to make money/beer doing a sleight that for one of various reasons, I didn't learn from a book I paid for? Tricky stuff

Serendipity wrote:after four pages of replies it hasn’t descended into a flame war

This hasn't gone unnoticed and it's a credit to those who've contributed so well and so courteously - thank you everyone !

Serendipidy makes a very well argued point although may I suggest at a tangent. The point is that the book itself is the copyright and there is a difference between copying a page for a friend and placing a whole book available for anyone to download. I think the first is right, the later isn´t.

kolm wrote:that's a very good question. How moral is it to teach someone a sleight if it's not yours? If you haven't paid for it? How moral would it be for me to make money/beer doing a sleight that for one of various reasons, I didn't learn from a book I paid for? Tricky stuff

Ooooooh, that's interesting!

My non-magician mate who is sat with me thinks that if you've spent the time practising something, turning it into a trick, performing it and being good at doing so, then it doesn't matter what the source was. The money is coming from skill, not knowledge.

I guess the whole discussion is difficult because one can't copyright knowledge, only printed material. We are defining a meta level of copyright outside the law which is associated with knowledge and ideas. We're also taking into account that the knowledge is reusable. We also place specific weight on magical knowledge over other types of knowledge. We are also trying to take into the reasoning behind limited print runs.

I'm having a problem thinking of another example which is not cookery oriented.

Let's say that a particular chef published the secret recipe for his sauce of pleasure in a limited print run of 1000 copies. Without concerning ourselves with the reasoning behind the print run, let's imagine that the print run been completed and that the book is no longer available first hand.

Does this chef expect that only 1000 people will cook his sauce? Does the head chef (the purchaser) in the restaurant have to keep the recipe secret from his staff? Can the chef publish a recipe which uses or is inspired by this sauce? Can the chef lend or resell the book?

In some other book, a chef writes "you now add Bob's sauce". This is parallel to the example where a magician quotes another sleight. If you purchaser of this second book is unable to get hold of this recipe due to it no longer being in print and everyone else being very moral, you can't use the recipe.

Is a magician faced with a sleight reference which is not available to them self, are they in a position to request a partial refund? Ethically, that is. Yes, this is being a total DA, but it does raise the question as to whether or not books are being sold with respect to knowledge of method or to give people enough to perform the trick itself.

Are we any different to chefs in context?

PS I've written to Coops and Richard for their opinion on this matter. If you know who they are, you'll understand why they are important

If books are not resold, lent or otherwise passed on then knowledge necessarily will become lost over time.

This makes me wonder, is it ok as a magician to inherit a book after the owner has died or is it ok as a non-magician to resell a magic book after the owner has died?

Marvell wrote:This makes me wonder, is it ok as a magician to inherit a book after the owner has died or is it ok as a non-magician to resell a magic book after the owner has died?

I hope so! When I die I'm leaving all my magic books to Mandrake

Thank you !

It is correct to say, you can copyright a written word but not a spoken one. It is also correct to say the same of an image, a picture or other printed matter. In most cases, the copyright lasts until 70 years after the author's death.

What about the Mona Lisa? the easy part is they don't let just "anyone" take a photo of it, and those that do pay a royalty to do so. Their picture is then published and a NEW copyright, that of the photograph in a book is born.

There are 2 kinds of patents one can get to protect intellectual property. A "design patent" is very literal and is defined quite narrowly by the "look" or design of something. A "utility patent" is much broader in scope because it is defined by the claims of the patent describing how something works, what it does, the problem this "thing" solves etc.

Then there is a Trademark. Word "marks" are one kind and they are exactly what they sound like, a registration based on a word. The second type of Trade Mark is a device mark. I guess you could say the word "McDonald's" would be registered in the class applicable to restaurants. I expect the "golden arches" symbol would be registered as a device mark.

The difficulty with magic is this. Think of a classic card move, "The Pass". The move itself does not fit into any of the above mentioned categories. So in it's case, and the case of many of magic's greatest secrets, the intellectual property component can not be protected by the courts. It can ONLY really be protected by magician's keeping their mouth's shut. So you could copyright a specific description of how to do it. You could register a trademark for the name of it "The Pass", but in so far as the actual doing of it... there is nothing one can do to prevent ANYONE from copying it.

I think that put's magic in a VERY unique category.

I remember a year or 2 ago, I bought Wayne Houchin's DVD "INDECENT". I am waiting for it to arrive from the US and while snooping around on eBay I see someone is selling the secret for $1.99. So I looked closer and what he was offering was simply how "he" thought the effect could be done.

He marketed it as "Wayne Houchin's INDECENT, my way" or something like that. So with a copy of the real one on the way, the nominal amount got the best of me and I bought the eBay item. I was so happy having watched it through to see the lame way this guy thought the trick was done, I was somewhat "miffed" a few days later when the real DVD arrived and I discovered the guy was right!

I won't bore you with the usual, I felt better having contrubited to the creator tripe... of course I do, but I will say the Houchin DVD contained enough additional ideas, handling and presentation suggestions to be worth while. It doesn't change the fact however, that the eBay guy obviously was making a habit of buying a copy of ellusionist DVD's then recreating them claiming it was nothing more than how "he" thought the effect could be achieved. Not a thing anyone could do about it!

No doubt we are all for giving creators and authors their due. I just think, when these same creators and authors either deliberately or accidentally create an environment that heavily inflates the value of one of their products beyond it's real worth, in a category such as magic where one can't really "try before you buy" as you can with almost all other purchases of significance... they must accept some responsibility for the fact many people will search for cheaper ways to get it.

of course we all wish people weren't like that... it would be much nicer if people accepted there were things they just "weren't meant to own"... heck, I often wish I was the only person in the world with a TT and an I.D.

but people aren't like that.

I got a reply from Richard Hatch who said I could quote it. It's worth noting that he's not read this discussion.

In my email to Richard, I wrote:We at talkmagic.co.uk are having a lively and devil's advocate inspired discussion about the morality of reselling magic books.

Pure Effect just happens to be the book which this discussion involves since it's not only out of print, but inflated in price. Both of these are side threads, as are scanned versions which we pretty much unanimously agree they are wrong.

Some people assert that it is morally wrong to resell or share (in business or clubs) magic books since the author only gets one royalty but there is more than one potential performer.

One of the interesting assertions made is about limited print runs result in hoarding, price inflation and ultimately people seeking alternative methods of acquisition. All of which is annoying, from our perspective.

Some people think that if a book is out of print, you can resell it it, but not whilst it's in print. Some think that if it's out of print, you just have to suck it up and it's morally wrong to sell/buy it.

Some people worry about royalties, some people worry about knowledge. Some people worry about potential performance. Some people concern themselves with their right to gain the knowledge.

So, to the question.

From an author and publisher's perspective, do you think it's morally wrong to lend or resell magic books which are either presently in print or out of print and if a books goes out of print, does a new person who wants to gain the knowledge have to suck it up?

In his reply, he wrote:H & R Magic Books may have a somewhat unique perspective, as the publisher of both Derren Brown books and as sellers of both new and second hand books.

Since we do purchase and resell second hand magic books, we obviously do not feel there is any moral problem doing so! This includes copies of books we publish. At any given time, we may have in our inventory both new and used copies of the same publication, including some of our own publications.

Typically we price used copies at 20% less than new copies, unless the work in question is out of print and in high demand (such as the Derren Brown books), in which case the marketplace rule of supply and demand determines price. The high price of the Derren Brown books is not due to scarcity, as both were published in relatively large number with respect to the small niche market for which they were intended. The high price is due to demand from outside the intended market, thanks to Derren's celebrity. Our course, sometimes the high price is also due to ignorance of a book's availability.

At a time when new copies of PURE EFFECT were still available from us for just $50 (and listed as such on our website, {removed}), a used copy of our edition sold on eBay for $792! Caveat Emptor.