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i did wonder myself. Im 46 next week, and ive spent most of those years studdying magic in one form or another. i can say hand on heart, that id never be able to watch that many dvds, of any kind, let alond just card magic.

you make a good point Renato
And thinking about it, I"ll definitely buy this dvd once I start performing this for paid gigs.

daleshrimpton wrote:i did wonder myself. Im 46 next week, and ive spent most of those years studdying magic in one form or another. i can say hand on heart, that id never be able to watch that many dvds, of any kind, let alond just card magic.

I go to a lot of second hand magic sales and usually buy these dvd's / tutorials in bulk. Most of them are VHS and the videoquality of them is a little bit effed up because their age. But they'll do fine.

I also have a dutch magic forum of my own and I work together with a local magic shop. I mention his store on my flyers, put banners on my website, put his store name on my business card and so on, and I get free dvd's in return instead of getting paid.

And on top of that, I buy a dvd or 2 a month. Now by dvd I don't always mean 90 minutes of tutorial. The 15 minute one on one's (from T11) are also in that list

And in that list are let's say: the royal road to card magic (4 dvd's), Richard sanders show (3 dvd's) Cameron Francis omega mutation (3 dvd's) the Daryl card series (13 VHS or so) so the number goes up pretty quick.

Last thing I must add, is that they're not all card magic dvd's / VHS but close to 80 % are about cards or the global view of the tutorial is about cards.

It's not really so much as to what's legal rather than what's ethical. I'm putting together a booklet and one of the effects in there which the working of is purely my own work has been pointed out to me to be very close to a Max Maven effect. It's all my own work but because it's close to what someone else has already put out, even though I've never seen this effect in action before unless I get permission from Max to use it, I'll change the working.

It's nice that some want to give credit, change methods or whatever for their own reasons. But that's down to their own personal values. Morality, ethics and so on are not carved in stone. Different societies/groups have different views and none are 'right' in a universal, ultimate-truth kind of way. The law is a fairly useful indicator as to the moral values of a specific society, though.

We can choose to criticise those who use the ideas of others to make money (some well-known internet magic vendors spring to mind), or may decide that it's fair business practice. The law says that it's fair. Our group might disagree, in which case the next step would be to lobby an MP, I suppose. I'm not volunteering for that, by the way

We might criticise someone who works out how a performer achieves an effect (and then goes on to copy that performance) on ethical grounds; criticise them for a lack of originality; or simply not care. The law cares not. The public might, though, rejecting Derren-a-likes when they pop up.

If someone reads Corinda, understands it and produces 13 leaflets covering the same kind of material, that's up to them. I imagine the results will be less good, but maybe there will be some added value. Bringing it up to date might be fun. However, reviewers will judge that and sales may be affected accordingly. That's the market making the decision, not magicians.

Creative people in any sphere have to stop worrying too much about imitators and just get on with innovating. Hopefully consumers agree and spend their money accordingly.

What's the worst that could happen if you accidentally duplicate one of Max's methods? A grumpy letter, criticism from your peers etc... which some people won't care about. You obviously do, which is great. But I guess you're main motivation is not to make vast amounts of money. Very rich people tend to be rather more ruthless.

I thought that this might be an interesting addition to the debate.