Umpa Duze wrote:Had you carefully read my original use of the term public domain it would be clear to you that much of what you have written is irrelevant to the point I was making. It was a poor choice of terms on my part.
Yes, the choice of terms made your initial post rather disagreeable and somewhat offensive.
My meaning, apparently not as clear as intended, was in line with the case cited wherein it is written If the discoverer writes and publishes a book on the subject (as regular physicians generally do), he gains no exclusive right to the manufacture and sale of the medicine; he gives that to the public.
And the omitted part of that quote says that new medicinal compounds are eligible for patent. Hence, it is a poor comparison, since sleight-of-hand compositions are expressly excluded from patents. A better comparison would be something from more related fields than medicin; like any of the dramatic arts.
The revelation as you put it, is my own, not Steinmeyers which I have made clear multiple times in describing that This is what startled me in Steinmeyers book or Maybe my whole thesis is wrong. Reading Jim's book just made me wonder.
Getting things wrong happen to us all. No problems with that.
However, if your thesis was based on a specific example, and that example is shown to be flawed, it isn't very academic to persist with the thesis unless you show that there are other examples that supports it. Have you found any other examples where the "same [flawed] method was republished again and again without any magic scholar raising the issue for generations."?
Had you read the references I provided, you would have found that it is unlikely that a sleight is so unique that it could be awarded a copyright. This is made clear by the exclusion of a variety of dance related examples of equally original and identifiable movements.
Yes, I noted some of the examples you provided, which seemed to consist of breaking down works to separate building blocks, and then evaluate the work as a whole from the vantage point of each individual component.
Or, if we translate it to fields we are more familiar with, to look at the separate words and letters in a book, point out that none of those individual components can be copyrighted, and therefore the work as a whole is excluded from copyright.
The other examples seemed to consist of a notion that basically says; Here is a specific love story. The basic theme of a love story can't be copyrighted. This specific love story is therefore excluded from copyright.
At least, that is what my eyes tell me. If you meant anything else, then I am afraid that your post was a tad unclear.
To suggest that you arrived at your material fresh from the womb, and owe nothing to those that came before, is again an embarrassing omission on your part. Perhaps you invented the Professors Nightmare, or the dramatic pose you use to indicate the importance of the effectno wait, I have seen all that before. You perform the Misers dream, with a wine glass and finger palmed coinsI did that when I was fifteen (you do it better). Now, perhaps you think that the way you bring the coin to your fingertips is uniquely your own and owes no debt to those who taught you, shared their ideas with you in books, on TV and in live shows. Just like most self-made men you appear to have selective amnesia. They may not be under your bed, but you can bet that you owe the magic community for every opportunity to perform magic you get in this world.
If this was supposed to give your definition of what the group "the magic community" consist of, then I'm afraid that you still are unclear. And it seems like you are claiming that this undefined group has a collective ownership to the works of others.
You seem personally offended. I must have selective amnesia, because I do not remember that
you have been involved in my work, and I can't remember any reason why I owe
you gratitude from my work.
The coin routine you refer to is derived from the works of Dai Vernon and Bob Read. In opposition to the approach you promote, I sought out Bob Read and the Estate of Dai Vernon, asked for and was granted explicit permission to include parts of their work into my own.
And this is where I can't follow your reasoning at all.
This is just interpretations, but by your tone here, it seems that you think that my approach to contact the actual creators of the work I've derived my work from and ask for permission is inherently wrong and ungrateful...
...and it seems you are suggesting that I should have ignored the actual creators, and instead given my work and gratitude to a faceless undefined group of people who have had nothing to do with the conception of neither my work nor the works of those individuals that I've derived my piece from.
Once again, it seems you are acting out of a belief that the faceless "magic community" has a collective ownership to the works of others, and more rights to those works than the creators themselves. If that is what you mean, I find that to be very disagreeable, and something that need to be confronted.