talkmagic.co.uk

This copyright/philosphicial question hit me recently.

I saw Mr Brown do his trick with Mr & Mrs Ross on TV, the one where they shuffle cards under the table and then turn one over, place it back in the pack and shuffle more. Then when they put the cards back on the table the one that she originally thought of is the one that is upside down.

I wanted to do this myself, so after trying different methods, I managed to create a way of creating the same effect. Now I KNOW that I use a different technique to Derren to create a similar end result (I can't say how I know as that would reveal the trick against forum rules).

I don't want to talk about the trick in question, this is just for an example to ask the question - is a trick the technique used or is it the effect it achieves? Or both?

I think it's more the technique used, more than the effect. My reason for this, being that there are many "effects" that can be done with various stacked decks (for example), but it's the stack itself which is "original".

Also, look at Twisted Aces. There are many versions of this, from the original Vernon effect, to the Asher Twist...

~Sym~

In my opinion, you should always view things from the perspective of the spectrator. Therefore, if the effect is the same, no matter how you achieve it, it is not original. However, if you achieve the same effect with a different method I do believe that you should gain credit for that, but not from spectators because to them the effect is still the same.

Good point, W!

So when you back in St. Ockton?

~Sym~

Good point S! Lol

We'll talk about it more via PM but basically anytime between 14th and 16th September.

This is a really interesting subject actually, I enjoy talking about this kind of thing

I am currently trying to think of a way to do extreme mental effort without [ahem hem I didn't want to include this part because it might spoil it ]

so it's done with proper cards (no stacks or memorised cards here either)

Is it wrong to do that???

This is a bit of an add-on of my previous posts in the Copyright page. Now recently I've been considering buying Jay Sankey's Just Imagine. But after reviewing his video of it many times, I'm almost certain of how it is done. Now some may say that because I never bought it, I truly never learned his teaching and that my take on it is actually my own because I came up with the solution without his consent, thus inverting my very own trick that may have simlarities to Just Imagine. What do you think. If I never bought Just Imagine and performed this trick and even sold it as my own, and it happened to be very simler to Just Imagine, could Sankey sue me for taking his trick.

Yes, if you have come up with the same technique that he has. If your technique is similar but not the same, it's up to the court to decide whether it is similar enough that it can be considered the same trick.

This is because Sankey will have copyrighted the trick, thus saying that he came up with it first. Even if you came up with it independently (which you can't prove) he has beat you to it.

ati

the spectators themelves could care less about the technique because they dont even realize what technique you use so i think that essentially it would be the same trick but a different variation of the said trick, and that among magicians you should definately gain credit, but among spectators credit should always go to the original creator of that effect. Does that make sense?

So if I modify a trick, it becomes mine. Although it would still be good to give credit to the original.

For the trick I described at the start of this thread, I can certainly say that Derren's version is better. When I do it I say that I saw him do something similar.
However mine is very easy to do, creating almost the same effect so I do claim a bit of originality.

I think it was Freud who said that there are only seven types of joke. Perhaps the same could be said of magic where there are just a number of basic techniques and we all dress them up differently?