talkmagic.co.uk

There's alot of bad magician's giving away the secrets to some of the greatest magic. I feel this is spoiling it for many others.

Ah, you've noticed. The question is, what to do about it.

comfortablynumb wrote:There's alot of bad magician's giving away the secrets to some of the greatest magic. I feel this is spoiling it for many others.

Well noticed. Have you seen the petition?

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic15789-0-0-asc-.php

Hmm lets face it youtube shouldnt be banned, Freedoom of speech and all that. Also magic is only one part of you tube there is also loads of other stuff on there. And if it is banned how would we up load videos for other TM members to see. But giving away the secrets should.

I think that if a person has a real interest in learning magic, they will get onto the magic sites etc. The majority of the people looking at you tube will be kids and only a small number will remember what they saw by tomorrow, even less will buy a pack of cards to try them, even less will stick with it.

I don't think it will have too much of an effect.

If they are interested they will look on the web under magic

A//

Frankly, I find this a futile argument.

Ever since the dawn of man's own free will, people's vices and needs have been satisfied. So long as there's something people want, or are interested in, others will oblige.

Drugs, guns, slaves, stolen goods, and yes—magic. Anything we want, we'll find a way of getting. The needy are always fed by the greedy.

It's a human thing. We're just like that.

Whilst magic is an 'in thing', people will satisfy the demand for it.

I notice YouPoohbe also had a certain execution video on it for a while. Again, it's what the public wanted to see. At whatever level social depravity falls to, someone will 'feed' people's hunger.

Unfortunately, with the internet being a global soapbox where individuals may find pleasure in satisfying the needs of others, this will continue.

Until the next big thing comes along.

While it may be a controversy, it still won't harm the magic community. Certain secrets will remain secrets, and certain knowledge will remain 'underground'. It's up to us as respectful members of what is indeed a niche community to ensure that we don't take any notice of it.

Recent figures show that companies such as Apple Inc. thrive from SELLING legal music downloads, even though music is freely available via pirate networks. The same with the movie industry—myself and Mrs Seige still find ourselves queuing at cinemas to see the latest movies with other like-minded individuals, even though there are hordes of file-sharing junkies out there are sitting in their comfy chairs watching poor quality video camera copies.

Suffice to say that the issue of piracy—and those who are actively involved in either creating or watching magic exposure clips—have been discussed here at length. And the proof that only good can come of it is evident if you speak to any magic dealer in the country... business is booming, and for every time someone learns the secret of an effect, another effect is released.

As an artform, magic is becoming bigger, better and more respected by those that matter. And what really counts is that if you take the time to look into magic as a performance art and how it's developing, you'll see that it is indeed thriving.

There's no need for anger. No need for revenge or 'bans' on the networks or sites which expose magic.

As I said at the start of this post, human nature is such that we cater for demand—and at the minute, the minions who are knowingly contributing to the poor quality, low-end and unprofessional garbage which is being called 'threatening' to the magic community are nothing more than wannabes who just want their five minutes of fame.

Whether they gain this fame by filming themselves swallowing Mentos and Diet Coke, or by exposing a simple magic sleight, they are nothing more than human.

And as fellow humans, with a lot more integrity and knowledge of the art, we ought to just leave them to it. After all, when an entity which almost encourages irresponsibility is so prominent—such as YouPoohbe—you have to forgive the weaker and more vulnerable individuals for using it in such a thoughtless way.

A mature, responsible magician catering for a mature, responsible audience isn't at threat here. And the real issues in the world today which really matter FAR outshine those being discussed here.

What are we REALLY afraid of? That these magic exposure sites will lead to a collapse and redundancy of working professionals? NO.

Are we afraid that if effects and secrets are freely available, magic shops will go out of business? NO.

Are we afraid that the saturation of the internet with magic secret's exposure will de-sensitise and poison our potential target audience? NO.

Or perhaps we're just annoyed that someone has the cheek to do it?

As an observation, it's not the professional workers or authors that are afraid or angry at this. It's the up-and-coming hobbyist magicians who see this more as a threat. Why?

Because the working, experienced magician sees day-in day-out that this piffle and rubbish being broadcast as exposure isn't harming them in any way whatsoever.

Think about that before you waste your energy.

Here here

A longer and more eloquent version of what I said

A//

Superlative post, Siege. I enjoyed reading the whole thing.

Mike.

Stage magic evolves through exposure. Whenever a large-scale level of exposure has occured in magic history (usually and ironically due to a growth in its popularity) it has been met by magicians pushing the envelope of what is possible.

There's also a point which I think Banachek makes, which is that magic is as much about presentation as about "secrets". A good performer could do a trick that has been exposed on YouTube to someone who already knows the secret but manage to do it in such a way that the spec would either forget the method or think that the performer was skilled enough not to need to use such "cheap" techniques. He refers to a highly accomplished card magician who would occasionally throw in tricks using a stripper deck that would have his fellow magicians baffled, simply because they fall for the suggestion that the performer wouldn't "lower" himself to using a gaffed deck. A good case in point is the "one ahead" principle in mentalism, which a lot of people know through kiddy level magic books but would never believe that professional magicians would use the same technique.

Also, there are plenty of magic fans out there, and even magic performers, who don't want to know how things are done.

Good point.
I know many magic tricksand lots of principles, I still get shown magic and mentalist effects that baffle me and leave me thinking.
As you say it is all about presentation, we have all seen the ACR for example. But it can be made to look very different depending on how you approach the trick, the moves and most of all the presentation.

I feel that it is important to think about how what you are doing and the way that you are doing it will look from the point of view of the audience, not from your point of view, Yes you may feel that the trick is a good one because you have used 15 really slick moves and 4 psychological forces. But the audience doesn't see these(if they are done well). What they do see is the way that you led them through the effect and built up tension and expectation. So just knowing how Derren Brown knows what card you are thinking of does not make you a mentalist performer.

I know how to play football but I'm not David Beckham.

The stuff that is exposed on you tube may get some people intersted in magic, if it does then that is great. They will persue it like all of us here, The rest will have forgotten about it in a week and will have moved onto the next thing of the moment.

A//

I'll tell you what should be banned.

Discussions about exposure.

They're bloody boring and repetitive.

Yes, I know I posted a poll about it a while ago, but that was just idle curiosity on my part not a desire to bang on about the ethics again.

bronz wrote:I'll tell you what should be banned.

Discussions about exposure.

They're bloody boring and repetitive.

Yes, I know I posted a poll about it a while ago, but that was just idle curiosity on my part not a desire to bang on about the ethics again.

I agree its the same arguments over and over again. Why cant we have a disscusion on becoming a better performer? Or something more relivent to magic? The expousre thing is here its a shame but thats life.

Magicians Try To Get YouTube Trick Exposure Banned

At the beginning of the month, the magic community submitted their petition to YouTube to have all magic trick exposure banned from their site. YouTube refused to do so, saying that there was no copyright issue and no legal precedent to ban them.

Since this announcement, the public interest in magic trick methods has increased massively. YouTube show a statistical increase of 100 times the number of trick reveal views and a number of high profile trick sites have sprung up. Amazon has also started advertising books previously only available at Magic Shops and specialist sites.

In addition, the sale of rip off ebooks on ebay has also increased, the knock on effect being an increase in prices and more profit for the ebook producers. With so much new money available, we expect a number of other major titles to be ebooked in no time.

How this has affected the art of magic has yet to be determined. Will this move by the magic community create a negative backlash from a more interested public or will the world be filled with a huge number of mediocre magicians performing the same tricks.

Either way, was it the right move?

Marvell wrote:Magicians Try To Get YouTube Trick Exposure Banned

At the beginning of the month, the magic community submitted their petition to YouTube to have all magic trick exposure banned from their site. YouTube refused to do so, saying that there was no copyright issue and no legal precedent to ban them.

Since this announcement, the public interest in magic trick methods has increased massively. YouTube show a statistical increase of 100 times the number of trick reveal views and a number of high profile trick sites have sprung up. Amazon has also started advertising books previously only available at Magic Shops and specialist sites.

In addition, the sale of rip off ebooks on ebay has also increased, the knock on effect being an increase in prices and more profit for the ebook producers. With so much new money available, we expect a number of other major titles to be ebooked in no time.

How this has affected the art of magic has yet to be determined. Will this move by the magic community create a negative backlash from a more interested public or will the world be filled with a huge number of mediocre magicians performing the same tricks.

Either way, was it the right move?

Where did you read this?

Wukfit wrote:Where did you read this?

I made it up