talkmagic.co.uk

http://www.magicpiracy.org/

a friend of mine who set up a free ebook shop (called imentalism.com) - showed me this link, it's kinda nice to know that there are some in our community who want to do something about the blatant stealing of others work...

it has a wall of shame too!

it would be great if more magic shops and solo producers of magic/mentalism signed up to this site...

I'm not sure that wall of shame is entirely legal...

whys that?

What an EXCELLENT idea! I wish I'd known a bout that site a few weeks ago.

It would certainly make people think twice about pirating goods! Now if only they put one of those flash games on their website where you can throw rotten tomatoes at their pictures then it would be perfect!

Ricky Jay: "Some people think it’s massive to steal the secrets of nuclear reactors, but to steal a card move is trivial. They’re wrong.”

...Right.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but the music industry suffers a worse turn - and has the financial clout to bring legislative change through - and even they can't stop it. I'm wondering just what this site can effectively do.

Also, is it just me, or is this page possibly the stupidest idea in history? There's stuff on there that I certainly didn't know had been pirated - The Mind And Magic Of David Berglas, for instance - and gentlemen with fewer scruples than I could effectively use that list as a makeshift tick list for their pirate activity.

maybe if enough sites signed up for it, you could technically blackball those people buying from the shops?

i dunno what good it'll do realistically - however, I'm all for making a stand against thieves and bullies...

I doubt this is the way to go. Piracy is a problem, but not just a problem for the magic community and above all piracy is not merely about people deciding to steal but rather a paradigm change in understanding "property".

I can recommend reading "The Pirates Dillemma" by Matt Mason, in which he gives a very nuanced analysis of piracy. But also shows how piracy as a cultural phenomena ushers many market branches and professional groups into a new way of thinking. In the sense that piracy is not just criminal, it is also culturally progressive; and similarities can be drawn to any former subversive subcultural movement of the past.

Before I'm being accused of excusing pirates or piracy, my point is only that it doesn't help to criminalize individuals - piracy won't go away. And resentment will be drawn, since it's strange to be a vigilante towards an individual while a large percentage of the digitalized world keeps continuing their piracy.

Besides, maybe the piracy of magic will usher magicians in a new era of magic which will become unpublished secrets again.

P.S.: Obviously I'm not a native English speaker, so any misunderstandings please ask.

i understand piracy wont go away, however, whatever we can do to stifle it is worth a go...

please understand that our stuff isnt the same as the music and film industry - its a much smaller market, and relies on the secrets...a film seen by millions of people worldwide is a massive difference to a dvd or ebook sold to maybe five thousand or so...

IAIN wrote:whys that?

They're giving away people's name, address, phone number and photograph. Privacy and data protection act

@IAIN

Yes very true, but I'm afraid a culture of indifference is what's the problem. People seem to neglect the difference between a Hollywood production that is boosted by immense non-nonsensical overhead and the intelligent effort put in a book by a magician.

I mean it's sites like ellusionist and such that jumped on the bandwagon of making money while popularizing knowledge that inherently shouldn't be popularized in such a way.

And now in a sense pandora's box is fully open and I think the only way to make this problem stop is to rethink the way magic secrets are published and distributed. But not by criminalizing the individuals since it would only create adverse effects.

But I reckon there is much more to say on the subject and there isn't a final answer to this problem.

kolm wrote:

IAIN wrote:whys that?

They're giving away people's name, address, phone number and photograph. Privacy and data protection act

ah i see - well, its only the names of the owners of the illegal sites - no big loss as far as i can see!

IAIN wrote:i understand piracy wont go away, however, whatever we can do to stifle it is worth a go...

please understand that our stuff isnt the same as the music and film industry - its a much smaller market, and relies on the secrets...a film seen by millions of people worldwide is a massive difference to a dvd or ebook sold to maybe five thousand or so...

Quite. If an ebook is expected to sell 250 copies over a modest lifespan of a year and some freetard posts it for others to download, 50 people might find and steal it rather than buy it over the course of that time. If it captures the community's imagination, the ebook's popularity might soar, but the number of illegal downloads also increases. No one can say with any certainty that those downloaders wouldn't have otherwise bought it. So, at the flick of a few keys one freetard destroys a large percentage of the income you were expecting (possibly even depending on) from the product you spent months creating. If you had a distribution deal with a retailer, the margin wasn't that good anyway. Was it worth writing? Probably not. Will you write another? Why bother if someone will simply rip it off?

So, why do freetards do it? After all, it's not like they post material they don't like, so it must be to do with peer prestige. But think about those peers. freetards destroy people's incomes to look good in front of strangers whose only reason for praising them is that they stole. That's both sad and deeply ugly.

At some point, someone is bound to insist or imply that it's immoral/cynical/etc. to deliberately set out to create magic to sell. No it's not. It's called a job. Magic is a multi-million dollar global leisure industry. A large part of that industry is the raw materials. We're all consumers of those materials. Piracy dissuades good producers from creating innovative raw materials, so essentially, there are fewer ideas entering the magical meme pool for us all to create from. The result is less innovation and more dull variations on tired old themes (more "I saw that on YouTube" moments?). But could creators and distributors be contributing to the problem? I think so.

I think it's time for retailers who offer distribution deals to start offering decent margins. I was recently offered just 10% for a non-exclusive distribution deal for Electronics for Magicians. By pricing things right you can get your margin over 80% using a print-on-demand service. It's also the responsibility of creators to ensure that the amount they charge for their material is commensurate with the amount of time and work they put in, not the amount of money they'd like to make. That goes for hardware too. Maybe observing these ideals would encourage people to buy instead of go looking for the nearest mouth breathing freetard when the desire to own outstrips the ability to pay.

PLEASE PARDON THE LENGTH OF THIS POST. THE REASON FOR THE LENGTH SHOULD BECOME CLEAR AS YOU READ IT. BUT PLEASE READ IT RATHER THAN CASUALLY SCANNING IT

Let me preface what I’m going to say by outlining a topic that’s been brought up on several forums I’m a part of, where the question of “file share” came up and just where the proverbial line is in the sand.

Long prior to the days of personal computers let alone the Internet magic buffs swapped and lent books and even tricks with one another. It was normal and accepted practice to make copies of props… hell, most magic shops made their “bread & butter” money by making up their own versions of the Professor’s Nightmare and numerous other rope and card gimmicks as well as locally built hand props and even grand illusions. This was all common and never argued practice.

Even as the Internet and Digital environment came to the fore various Magic forums and clubs as well as some very respected names of the industry not only established on line libraries that included contemporary materials along side the old. One such person teaming with noted magic historians and scholars from around the globe with the intent of deliberately digitizing every known text tied to our craft and setting it into a massive research library to which a nominal membership fee would be charged but all members would have total access to every single piece of “copyrighted” material set into said archive. This is not a “File Share” source but a heralded (for the most part) and “much needed” (according to many) resource for the magic community as a whole.

Then as now, the question was asked, “Where do we draw the line?”

When is the very innocent and arguably “traditional” mode of sharing material transmute and become an act of trespass and/or theft?

I’m willing to bet that well over 90% of the membership of this very forum is “guilty” of the innocent sharing of materials, including books of current release. It’s a matter of human nature and our social need to exchange and work with our friends and associates on this or that project.

Based on what I’ve seen in the five or six forums I’ve been involved in over the years where the bigger named authors of our industry tend to reside, fewer than 3% of these people see such innocent and “normal” exchange as a threat or even wrong for that matter. That 3% seems composed of those that tend to poop diamonds, if you get my drift. Not to mention that fact that they have a sense of self-importance and grossly exaggerated perception when it comes to the true novelty and value of what they’ve shared… Especially when more than 90% of what they’ve put out has already been said in other tomes far pre-dating them and their only real claim to fame is collecting said thoughts and placing them into a single volume… it’s amazing how many have done this within our industry but even more so, how few are educated enough to catch it and thus, they fall into the hype and faux reality that something is ground-breaking and unique.

In instances of this sort you will find those that point fingers and accuse certain authors of crass plagiarism. It was just such an instance that recently inspired me to ask for a particular book for the sake of double-checking said claims before saying one way or the other. The author of said book and I having a rather fluid amount of bad blood between us but yet, I’m man enough to give credit where it is due. But only after I’ve put some time into finding out the facts… but let me go one step further in this case, pointing out that a huge number of my friends that know the book in question and the material in it explained to me that it wasn’t anything all that new, it was based on old and proven thinking that had been part of mentalism for decades. Comments that kind of supported the case of possible plagiarism not to mention a good deal of curiosity on my part in that these charges didn’t match up to my perception around the person producing said tome.

Long story short, I asked three people if I might be able to get a copy of said book just for the sake of confirming or negating the tales and opinions I’d heard. I guess you could say it was a point of irony in that I was actually looking for a reason to defend the person who’d been tormenting me for so long, but my well meaning intentions were met with venom… venom that was not expressed to others who are just as guilty as I in such antics, presumably due to their standing in our society and the fact that the writer in question didn’t have an agenda when it came to them.

I reveal the fact that I did asked for a copy of said book simply because this thread was posted for the sake of drawing me out (or so it would seem)… I know that Iain will deny that, claiming he was only posting a new resource, but at the same time there were ulterior motives; the aforementioned author of the book in question already commenting on how he wished he this resource were known to him some weeks back… possibly so he could add my name to the Wall of Shame but then this is a very sticky wicket for the people hosting said Wall as well as those making such public postings. It could open some very ugly legal doors in which a well intended action would result in an equal and opposite reaction. I say this in that the idea of such an exhibition has been discussed for at least the past five years in several groups and the legitimate lawyer types belonging to those groups warned against such antics in that the litigation by the accused alone could bankrupt the average person as well as any small collective that would be so bold.

Getting back to my situation… to the question as to where the line in the sand rests?[/u] I’d have to say, as I’ve said many times before, there is a gross difference between such an innocent course of action, such as I’ve admitted to vs. the more malicious antics found within the File Share and Black Market elements that get the dander of the bigger named writers up. It is the bulk availability of such materials, using their work as currency and those that literally list copies of said material on eBay and similar sources for trivial sums that place cash into the pocket of the thief but omit the writers and publishers of said materials… these are the people that most of us have the greater concern with. Not just because of the lost revenue but because of the casual availability of information.

Recently I was made aware of two Jerome Finely books now on Torrent sites; his famed $1,000.00 eBook of which only 50 total copies are to exist and his Guerilla Q&A. That means that someone on his “trusted” list betrayed his trust. Now I know for fact it wasn’t me in that I can’t figure out those Torrent sites nor do I have material I’d “swap” with such a group. I’m confident that it wasn’t Riggs or Cavalli or any number of others that have closer ties to Jerome but it happened… it has likewise happened with my own material including (I have to laugh at this) my very first book on Séance work put out back in the late 80s under my old stage name.

Until we can define just where that line in the sand lays there is no way to not point a finger at this or that person in that the majority of us are guilty of being FRIENDS and sharing with friends or, in some instances, mentor with student. It is how magic or most any hobby/vocation has always worked long, long before the “Information Age” in which we now live.

Show me how to fulfill this sort of rapport without betraying an author/publisher and I’ll show you a true gem for us all to relish and enjoy. But over the past decade no such gem has been found; the money chasers screaming foul, oft times in but select scenarios, while the people of note seem to move forward in stride, lending their focus and energy on the higher profiled situations in which Mass Exposure/opportunity is being made and even then their efforts tend to be rather limited and even silent.

Yes, I am adamantly opposed to THEFT when it comes to the black-market and networking situations we all face. Such antics are deliberate and an expression of today’s “gangsta’ attitudes as well as the philosophy that all information should be “free” no matter what it is; hackers have little respect on this issue even when it entails potentially dangerous data… after all, you can find schematics for all kinds of WMDs on line with very little effort.

I will go out of my way to assist ANYONE, including the clowns I have disagreements with (who are few in number) to bring down those situations in which mass distribution/exposure is happening as well as persons generating personal profit off the backs of others. But I will likewise defend those that innocently share material here and there and at a very minimal scale with friends that are working on a given bit of material or when the teacher finds resource that will aid a student with better understanding. I simply cannot see how this is all that “wrong” given the fact that it is a common aspect of history and human “need” as well as nature.

[i]And For The Record… I bet I don’t do this kind of thing more than five or six times a year if that. I have so many other ways of negotiating and obtaining the information that are up and up and actually involve the author… and before it gets said, that does not mean I “guarantee” people a positive review in VISIONS or one of the other publications I write for from time to time.


Before I end this post there is one other important bit of information for you to bear in mind as you discuss this issue; the fact that a handful of noted personalities within our industry have been actively digitizing every book they can get their hands on, old & new, for the sake of creating a massive Magic Library that will be on-line and available to all that hold a subscription. Authors will not see royalties from said material and no one involved sees where any kind of copyright infringement exists because of the tradition tied to the library system. So if that is the case, are these otherwise great men guilty of being bottom feeders and slime such as we find in the portraits on display here with this idea?

For that matter, should all Public & Private Library & Research facilities be charged with copyright infringement; they do after all, photograph and digitize countless publications other than newspapers and magazines not to mention the fact that they will let just about anyone with a library card take out any book found on the shelf… INCLUDING books on magic & mentalism! But then that would likewise include every major Magic Club such as the Magic Castle, Magic Circle and numerous IBM/SAM groups…

So, where do we draw the line and how do we draw it in a way that is fair to one and all?

i couldnt be bothered reading the above post, but to make things clear, i just posted this thread up cos luke sheild originally did over at the cafe...

this is the breadcrumb trail if anyone is interested:
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Penny for your thoughts » » Mentalism Work Theft

On 2009-08-25 19:52, shield wrote:
The magic community already has something like this Iain:

http://www.magicpiracy.org/

They have a wall of shame.

Luke

"doth protest too much", "pot calling the kettle black", and various other quotes also spring to mind...

i hope this doesnt get locked due to paranoid diatribes...