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Personally there are so many methods for achieving the same illusion thats its pointless trying to say well this method is used by x and that method gets used by y, at the end of the day im sure 99% of the tricks we see on tv or buy on dvd or in books was thought of by someone else at some time, I mean are you telling me that the common methods we use were thought of by only one individual at a time? of course not, that would be impossible. The problem with intellectual property is proving you came up with it first is the entire battle, and if you work out a method for achieving the illusion the only way you can find out if you owe the original creator any kind of credit is if you can get them to confirm your method is theirs, if they refuse to tell you if you are correct then its surely not on your shoulders when it comes to the method you have devised, does this make it stealing? in a word no, unless you steal line for line their entire illusion, otherwise the credits list at the end of any book or dvd we buy would be endless if they had to list all the people who may have created the DL or other methods used regularly.

thats just my input on the subject.

Justin

hds02115 wrote:I've not read all the posts here as there are a fair few, but what would you consider this to be?

If you see an effect you like, you work out your own method for accomplishing this effect, and when you do find out the original method the magician used it's different? So in the end, you have an effect that looks either the same or quite similar, however the methods are completely different? What are your views on that?

We've all done this.

French Kiss by Wayne Houchin for example. I first saw it done by Dynamo on Children in Need or Comic Relief (I forget which) and thought it was quite a cute trick. I have a reasonably good idea about how it's worked but as soon as I saw it I immediately thought of how I could do it. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not a cardie but my method only used sleights from my world, not the cardies. I also present it differently though not drastically.

Should I feel that I owe anything to Houchin? No. Not a chance in Hell. I saw a trick, liked it, thought I'd like to achieve a similar effect and immediately (it really was immediate too, it's that blatant lol) thought of a way to do it. Hurrah.

One of the things which happens a lot is people stealing lines from other magicians, but this doesn't seem to get commented on as much as stealing methods/presentations...

Is this stealing? We've all done it, I'm sure. I'm quite guilty of borrowing lines that amused me, but maybe some people take it too far. Gazzo's cups and balls act, for example, seems to be repeated off by heart by a lot of people. Especially with Gazzo, a lot of his lines only work because of who he is, I've seen kids trying to do his act on youtube (which is hilarious, he entertains people, not webcams...)

It's the same with Vernon's Cups and Balls (how many cups and balls routines have the line "it's all in the power of the mystic wand"?), I've seen people switch in to a Vernon-esque accent when they start to do it...

Having said that, there's not a huge amount of funny/clever things to say about cups and balls, so maybe borrowing the good ones is ok...

Is it ok to borrow a line but not a whole routine? 2 lines?

Different facet of the same discussion I guess...

I've not read all the replies because this is an age old issue, but just in case it was missed somewhere along the line, you cannot copyright a method. You can only copyright a presentation. Go ahead, work out a method but if you copy what you see from another performer you are stealing.

What is interesting is that in magic sometimes the method may dictate the presentation. Copperfields flying is a good example of this. I'm not going into details because that would expose the method. The method was used before and the presentation although used in a completely different context, and with a few new elements thrown in for magical purposes the two performances were close enough that it became an issue. I understand from the executive producer (who is dead now) that this was an honest mistake was made on the Copperfield team and a settlement did happen and the Copperfield camp did gain the rights to continue performing the effect.

kartoffelngeist wrote:One of the things which happens a lot is people stealing lines from other magicians, but this doesn't seem to get commented on as much as stealing methods/presentations...

Is this stealing? We've all done it, I'm sure.

Hmmm, now I'm not going to sleep well tonight. I cringe a little when I see magicians using another's gags etc. and yet I occasionally use one of Luke Jermay's little lines when opening.

Oh the hypocisy!

Libraries (at least in the UK) pay royalties whenever anyone takes out a book, so that should temper your guilt when using those places.

I know the issue here is a moral one, taking someone else's creativity. Personally I think we should be more strict as a community - in comedy there is a big push to create your own material, and stealing jokes is a big no-no, but in magic we sell booklets and pdfs of 'stock lines' - personally I don't use them. I heard one magician who said, he used them because the audience might not see another magician that year, so why not. My response was, well what about the off chance that they do see two magicians that year, or that week, and they are both using the same tired line.

Coming back to the main issue. It's not possible to 'steal' information, but like I said, I think we should have more respect for other people's creativity, and should use our own creativity to come up with our own routines.

Apart from the ethics of copying someone else's presentation / lines, there's an even more basic point: You won't get anywhere unless you come up with your own presentation. Somebody else's style will never suit your personality.

So lifting presentation from other performers, or parroting "suggested patter" from books, isn't going to do anybody any good anyway.