Castle Grievance filed against Bill McIlhany by Rich Cowley

[Richard Kaufman]

Piracy is an inevitable fact of life in the modern era. Nothing seems to be able to stop it, only slow it down a tiny bit.

Fortunately ... FORTUNATELY ... there are apparently still enough honest people who are willing to pay for a product to make it worthwhile putting one out at least some of the time. Note that I said "some" of the time.

I don't know if it's a good idea to put video up on the Castle website or not. I would imagine that brief clips of a minute or two from different acts might garner attention but simultaneously not be of great value when pirated onto a bit torrent site or cause any harm either to the acts or the AMA.

[Jonathan Townsend]

IMHO the value to the craft, excluding gloating rights, of such data is the discussion it produces and the way the next generation learns from what worked at that time to evolve it into what they need to explore to work in their time.

Those who fuss to copy other people's tricks are about as relevant to our craft as brands of bread are to pigeons - they just want crumbs - why bother to even consider them?

Kindly get the material out there and accessible before it all winds up as pertinent as cigarette, thimble, billiard and handkerchief magic - or maybe hold it tight till the world reverts back to early 1900 culture and more folks can rip off Masklyene, Germaine and DeKolta with impunity.

[David Alexander]

Back to the original topic of this thread: With all the blather about Bills alleged breach of ethics Im wondering if theres been any discussion about reimbursing him for the nearly $10,000 he spent storing the material in a private storage unit at Milts request.

[MaxNY]

I worked with Larry for years. He is quiet knowledgeable about films, and restoration. Where is it? Probably sitting in Brooklyn. He had it out to show once or twice at his "One day conventions" back in the 1970's. I'm sure he didn't view Nitrates.

[Bill McIlhany]

Thank you, David! The cost to me and Jim Starr for our years of work archiving and preserving the Magic Castle film and video library goes way beyond that amount. We had finished most of that job when Tolman allowed Cowley to seize control of the video library and take the DVDs from CBS home to make unrestricted copies for himself. I trust that rational minds at the Magic Castle will put all this deceitful and ludicrous vendetta against us where it belongs and it will not be necessary for me to collect those and other expenses in court.

Thanks again, my dear friend,

Bill McIlhany

[Bill McIlhany]

With so many people having read and responded to my original posting, I want to thank all those who sent expressions of personal support for me and disgust with what is going on. I am informed by the chairman of the Grievance Committee, Randy Sinnott, that Cowley and his probable witnesses, Holly and Tolman (who were never present when Jim Starr and I did the years of work archiving and preserving the Magic Castle film and video library), have agreed to either December 4 or 11 for my hearing and that it may occur then whether or not I am able to attend or wish to attend. All my friends who are outraged by this matter and might like to enjoy the sitcom-like procedure, they can keep track of this or express their comments to:

Randolph P. Sinnott
Sinnott, Puebla, Campagne & Curet
550 S. Hope St., Suite 2350
Los Angeles, CA 90071
(Phone: (213) 996-4200
Fax: (213) 892-8322
RSinnott@spcclaw.com
www.spcclaw.com <http://www.spcclaw.com/> their comments to:

I'm not allowed to record the hearing or have my attorney present (except, perhaps, as a witness for me - good idea!). If you are there, you will not be charged Randy's hourly fee and you will not have to remain where Cowley wants you to be - in the dark!

Bill

[mrgoat]

For balance, I think Rich Cowley is really nice and he's always been charming to me each time I see him.

[houdini's ghost]

Both the guys seem, at heart, to want to preserve footage of magicians.
We know why preservation is absolutely necessary. Film dies. Video tape dies. People die and their old junk gets thrown out.
So preservation has got to be done now, and yesterday, and tomorrow.
Now the question comes up: who's got the rights to the footage?
The answer is: no one except the people who are in the footage who haven't signed releases, or the people who own the footage who have such releases.
What if everybody in the footage is long dead?
A network or a big studio would look into that carefully. These people have heirs.
But, the bottom line is that we mustn't let history disappear.
What is done with video of live performers is up to those performers.
Let's save everything we can.

[mrgoat]

Wow. Google is interesting. I was just about to email Mr Cowley, and needed his email address, so I googled:

Rich Cowley

Loads of not the right ones appear. So I added 'magician' to the search.

This thread is number 4.

[Mike Rozek]

Rich's online presence is actually pretty impressive. He's the first hit on Google when you search for his name. The info isn't for his magic, rather his wedding ministry.

[David D. C.]

David Alexander states: "Back to the original topic of this thread: With all the blather about Bills alleged breach of ethics Im wondering if theres been any discussion about reimbursing him for the nearly $10,000 he spent storing the material in a private storage unit at Milts request."

Thanks, David, that is an impressive figure, one I hope Milt Larsen will address, since it was Milt's, not Rich's, request. With that new bit of unearthed information, it seems even more a Castle matter, and should really go through the Castle Grievance committee which Bill has finally directed people to voice their opinion and go to, hope to see friends and foes at the hearing, whether or not Bill decides to show up.

Which then begs the question, if the missing footage is stored at a location at Milt's request, then would it seem Bill knows where the missing footage is? Unless it isn't with Bill or Rich or the Castle, and I thought that was the issue at hand and what was important: tracking and maintaining archival footage for preservation. As Bill states:

"Our contentment and reward comes, not from any praise or public recognition, but by that gift we could only give ourselves. In the future, if this rich film and video legacy survives for future generations, we will know that we made it possible."

I can't agree with Bill any more in that statement. Good luck and hope all goes well and Bill kicks everyone's butt for questioning his ethics. (There's certainly plenty of butts that need kicking at this point.)

[Doc]

He received a glowing testimonial from Milt Larsen so he must be o.k. :whistle:

[Alan Bursky]

Poor Nazarene. No followers here.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Alan Bursky wrote: Poor Nazarene. No followers here.
Thought he said something about rendering unyo Cesare (the law as in copyright - so many items in flagrant violation of copyright) and give unto "god" what is god's. The "fair use" challenge is interesting. May have to be taken to court though.

Can't help with suggestions about other people's TV shows (they own them -so that's one problem) but the other side - a policy about filming shows at the Castle the same way they do for Broadway productions may have some viable applications to our craft. Any of the NY Broadway folks care to comment on that library and its access?

[Bill Mullins]

Geez, Jon -- Max Has already said that many performers don't want their performances filmed. That should be the end of the discussion.

[magicam]

[color:#FF0000]"Has anyone ever tried to ask the living magicians, or the estates of the dead ones, if they would mind if their content was available to magician AMA members worldwide?"[/color]

I say let McIlhany at his expense spend the next decade tirelessly securing copyright clearance under extremely difficult circumstances for only a portion of the film archive and then sock him with an ethics complaint for failing to secure clearance for all of the Castle's films ...

[NCMarsh]

"Which then begs the question, if the missing footage is stored at a location at Milt's request, then would it seem Bill knows where the missing footage is?"

No, it doesn't. If you had taken a few minutes to actually read Mr. McIlhany's account before shooting off; you would see that the storage of footage was from 2004-2006.


-------
The relevant passage:

"Because the future of the Castle, its operation and location, were quite up in the air from early 2004 onward, I asked Milt Larsen if I should bring the video tapes and DVDs from CBS and leave them at the Castle. He instructed me to keep them all in storage until the power struggle was over and the dust had settled. I paid for a $400 a month storage unit in west Los Angeles and kept them stored there. I told then Academy President Dale Hindman that I was not going to risk leaving the DVDs at the Castle until a fire-resistant and lockable storage unit was obtained for them. This did not happen until 2006. I paid to store and protect the tapes and DVDs for almost two years."

$400 x 24 months = $9,600

[Ray Pierce]

Wow... What an interesting discussion! There is way too much I could add about Rich and Brian but won't for many reasons. I will say that I haven't been a member of the Castle since that night when Brian Tolman called me to inform me after the fact that he had replaced me with Rich. I'm sure he really campaigned for the position as he has for everything in his rise to power starting with the member's meeting years ago where he always made an impression.

When I first started working with Milt back in the late '70's, we were taping every show every week for the Castle Archives. The reason the performers feel the way they do is that we always kept all of the tapes (Beta) in Bill's office. An agent was looking for acts and someone (who will remain nameless) selected a tape of this act from the archives to show to the agent. Should have all been good, right? The problem is that the show we shot wasn't one of his best but had been locked for eternity on that tape. The agent passed on this performer based on viewing this footage of one sub par performance. The performer later found out and was understandably livid.

The problem I always had when I headed up the video committee for all of those years was that we had all of this footage of magicians which we couldn't really do anything with. It was a great record of some amazing performers, but with no permission to utilize it. The other issue was with the repetition of so many Castle "Regulars", we had dozens of copies of many performers duplicating the exact same act. We stopped shooting each week and went to a request only VTR system as a service to the performing magicians.

I worked with Bill and Jim Starr for years as they tirelessly worked to create a practical system to catalog the hundred of hours of videos.

I understand the legal issues with releasing many of the archive tapes, hopefully they can be kept until an answer evolves!

[mrgoat]

magicam dribbled: "I say let McIlhany at his expense spend the next decade tirelessly securing copyright clearance under extremely difficult circumstances for only a portion of the film archive and then sock him with an ethics complaint for failing to secure clearance for all of the Castle's films ..."

Oh, so we already have the rights for a large portion of it, do we?
Awesome, let's put it online tomorrow then.

[Terrence]

Here is the applicable section of the Standing Rules of the AMA that apply to all of our members:

5. Ethics and Grievance Committee Guidelines. The Ethics and Grievance Committee has primary responsibility under Article VII of the By-Laws for determining violations of the Standing Rules. It is the policy of the Board of Directors that proceedings before the Ethics and Grievance Committee be informal, speedy and not subject to formal rules of evidence or procedure that might otherwise govern proceedings in a court of law. Accordingly, subject to the notice and other requirements specifically set out in Article VII of the
By-Laws, and the rules set forth below, the Ethics and Grievance Committee shall have the authority to determine in its own discretion, the procedures to be followed in its hearings, the information and evidence to be received by the Committee or not received, the order of witnesses to be heard, the number of witnesses to be heard, the duration of testimony by witnesses or statements by any person (including the Respondent), and the weight to be given to any information or testimony received by the Committee. A Respondent shall be entitled to be present during the giving of testimony by witnesses at a hearing before the Ethics and Grievance Committee, subject to the absolute right of the Committee to exclude from a hearing any person (including a Respondent) who is disruptive, unruly or obstructs the orderly process of the hearing, in the sole discretion of the Committee. The presence of persons at a hearing other than the Respondent and a witness giving testimony shall be in the sole discretion of the Ethics and Grievance Committee. Unless authorized in advance by the Board of Directors, no recording of hearings of the Ethics and Grievance Committee shall be permitted, whether by electronic, stenographic or other means.

A Respondent shall provide to the Chair of the Ethics and Grievance Committee at least five calendar (5) days in advance of the hearing: (a) all written materials and information that the Respondent desires the Committee to consider at the hearing; and (b) a written list of the names of all persons who the Respondent intends to present as witnesses at the hearing, together with a brief summary of the testimony expected to be given by each such person and an estimate of the amount of time that will be necessary to hear the testimony of each such person. Failure to comply with these requirements may result in the Committee, in its sole discretion, refusing to consider such written material and information and the testimony of such persons.

[houdini's ghost]

Somebody's doing that to Bill?
"Who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind."

[Jonathan Townsend]

Geeze Bill, you are shedding more light on just why magic is so far down on the scale of respectable entertainment. The folks who produce shows on Broadway know their work will be recorded for future reference. Magicians - some who seem to confuse the absurdity of their claims in performance with their reasoned positions about serious matters - are not doing too well in forward thinking or even keeping up with the other arts. But I suppose the vain will enjoy being used as a dog-and-pony show for the pop psychology showmen for a while - at least until the serious psychology researchers start asking "what leads you to believe that those in your audience will follow/believe/accept... type questions.

Now from a devil's advocate position - the Magic Castle has admitted to having maintained, propagated and sold copyrighted materials without permission, used performances filmed without permission and to maintaining filmed records showing people attending the establishment which serves liquor without permission ... and involved CBS in the process of both the violation of copyright and preservation of those audio/video records. Okay - what do you expect to happen when anyone any sort of court of public opinion or with an interest in protecting the corporate reputation of CBS hears of this matter? I do hope there aren't any minors involved or shown on these videos.

Thanks Bill, you should post more often. Inspiring - really.

[Q. Kumber]

Jonathan wrote: [color:#3333FF]The folks who produce shows on Broadway know their work will be recorded for future reference.[/color]

Jonathan, as I understand it, the producers of Broadway shows are not legally entitled to video tape their own shows.

[NCMarsh]

A performer's act is his/her most valuable asset. You're already asking folks to give a week of shows for $800; to then expect that for that $800 you should be able to distribute the performer's most valuable asset worldwide, in perpetuity, to end up in god-knows-whose hands and shown in god-knows-what context....I think it is asking too much of artists who are already virtually donating the fruits of their lifes' work...

[magicam]

[color:#990000]A Respondent shall provide to the Chair of the Ethics and Grievance Committee at least five calendar (5) days in advance of the hearing: (a) all written materials and information that the Respondent desires the Committee to consider at the hearing; and (b) a written list of the names of all persons who the Respondent intends to present as witnesses at the hearing, together with a brief summary of the testimony expected to be given by each such person and an estimate of the amount of time that will be necessary to hear the testimony of each such person. Failure to comply with these requirements may result in the Committee, in its sole discretion, refusing to consider such written material and information and the testimony of such persons.[/color]

I think the foregoing requirement of complete advance briefing of a case for committee members shoots to hell Cowley's claim that committee members want to be in the dark until the actual meeting.

As for you goat, from your initial inappropriate cliff notes? post, to your latest post, it's clear that you can't read for understanding and/or have too short of an attention span to comprehend anything longer or more complex than marketing slogans. Pity.

[houdini's ghost]

You know, when a performer is performing for a live audience, he gives a different performance than when he is performing for video.
A video taken with a lock-down camera at the back of a room is great for the historical record and as a learning tool for the performer, but, only for that.
These should never be released without the performers' explicit agreement.
But as history,they're sacred.
Were such Magic Castle tapes used in the media in any way?
Was there clearance from the performers?

[Jonathan Townsend]

As easily found via the internet: "The Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT), housed in the Lucille Lortel Room, adjacent to the Research Collections Reading Room, is restricted for use by theatre professionals, students, and researchers with a work- or study-related reason to view. Advance appointments for viewings are required and may be scheduled by telephoning 212-870-1642."

I can't say much for those who would copy, those would attend such or those who would buy from or sell to copyists.

Just a shame that so much of our history is sitting inaccessible to those who could benefit from the good examples set by working performers.

[Q. Kumber]

Yes TOFT may do the recording for an archive but, to the best of my knowledge individual producers are not allowed to tape their own shows.

[Larry Horowitz]

Ok I must be missing something.....

I am the producer of a show. I have paid for the rights to produce the material.

I have paid for the performances of the actors. Specifically acting the roles and lines which I have paid the rights for.

They are on a stage which I pay for, with scenery I pay for.

Why can't I video this? (provided I am not using the tape for something other then the actors were contracted for).

[Bill Mullins]

Jonathan Townsend: [color:#FF0000]"As easily found via the internet: "The Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT), housed in the Lucille Lortel Room, adjacent to the Research Collections Reading Room, is restricted for use by theatre professionals, students, and researchers with a work- or study-related reason to view. "[/color]

An important point about the TOFT archive you neglected to mention is found HERE: "With the consent and cooperation of the theatrical unions and each production's artistic collaborators, TOFT produces video recordings . . ." Note, for example, that the collection doesn't include a copy of "Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants".

Permission of the artists is important. And respecting that fact doesn't put magic "far down the scale of respectable entertainment."

[Jonathan Townsend]

Larry Horowitz: Ok I must be missing something.

How about a legal precedent upon which to state your opinion as other than wishful thinking or disingenuous distraction?

[Bill Mullins]

Jonathan Townsend: [color:#FF0000]"the Magic Castle has admitted to having . . . sold copyrighted materials "[/color]

Where was that mentioned??? I missed it. (not saying it didn't happen, just that I missed the original claim.)

[Bill Mullins]

Larry Horowitz -- if your contracts with all of the writers, composers, and performers (and anyone else who has a copyright interest in the work as performed) allow you to do so, then go ahead. But that's what you will need. (and I wouldn't be surprised if modern Broadway and other theatrical contracts had work-for-hire or other boilerplate clauses that allowed this).

[Passionboy]

Concerning Rich Cowley's ordination, anyone can be ordained as a minister for a fee. There are places that do this. I've tried this myself, although my present ordination is earned and legitimate.

[Jonathan Townsend]

Hi Bill, that was from my misrecalling some text from the OP "Until the end of 1997, magicians were able to purchase a VHS viewing copy of non-copyrighted footage from the collection." My bad.

And to the larger issue - yes I am suggesting the AMA/Magic Castle seek a TOFT type arrangement for recording with permission and viewing by appointment. That would be, IMHO, several steps toward some stability for the video archives.

[David D. C.]

Exactly. The footage between 2004 - 2006 is stored with Bill, not the Castle, or Milt, so it would be missing from the Castle archives. Isn't this the grievance as described by Bill in the very first post? I think we have a difference in point of view.

[Larry Horowitz]

Jonathan,

What opinion did I state?

And where did I post a "disingenuous distraction"?

Larry

[magicam]

To David D. C.:
Where is there any reference in this thread to footage of performances between 2004-2006, or any claims that the missing footage relates to 2004-2006 performances? All Bill M. has said is that he stored some video tapes (that had been processed at CBS) and their DVD copies at a storage unit during the period 2004-2006 at his expense and at Milt's request. Then Bill says that when the Castle finally obtained a fire-resistant, lockable storage unit late in 2006, he turned all the video tapes that had DVD copies over to Cowley.

I think you need to carefully read Bill M's original post.


Relevant text from Bill M's original post:
[color:#CC0000]Because the future of the Castle, its operation and location, were quite up in the air from early 2004 onward, I asked Milt Larsen if I should bring the video tapes and DVDs from CBS and leave them at the Castle. He instructed me to keep them all in storage until the power struggle was over and the dust had settled. I paid for a $400 a month storage unit in west Los Angeles and kept them stored there. I told then Academy President Dale Hindman that I was not going to risk leaving the DVDs at the Castle until a fire-resistant and lockable storage unit was obtained for them. This did not happen until 2006. I paid to store and protect the tapes and DVDs for almost two years.

In 2006 Rich Cowley was making a computer database of the books and periodicals in the Castle Library. He said he wanted to add the Video Library to that same database. By the end of 2006, the Castle Library finally had a lockable safe for the DVDs and I delivered most of them to Cowley. I was still taking more video tapes to CBS and bringing them and the digital copies made at CBS back to the place I stored them since 1994. [/color]

[Jonathan Townsend]

Larry, musicians usually get paid differently for recorded performances. There's a pretty well known story about a band which almost went on strike when they told they were going to get standard rates for the show that was to be recorded for a live album. That likely includes those who perform on Broadway. By extension one would expect a similar special agreement to be made for recording the actors etc.

Amusing to be taking this tact on the matter when I'm usually all for recording and performances that the performers are okay with and encouraging those who inherit the rights to such recordings to let get them out to offer the next generation examples of just how competent and well designed earlier works were in context - so they know where the bar is set for adding to our craft.

It's as if there are two forces at work here - one propagating a generic lowest common denominator standard and another almost inaccessible collection which could be doing so much more for this generation's students.

[David D. C.]

To David D. C.:
Where is there any reference in this thread to footage of performances between 2004-2006, or any claims that the missing footage relates to 2004-2006 performances? All Bill M. has said is that he stored some video tapes (that had been processed at CBS) and their DVD copies at a storage unit during the period 2004-2006 at his expense and at Milt's request. Then Bill says that when the Castle finally obtained a fire-resistant, lockable storage unit late in 2006, he turned all the video tapes that had DVD copies over to Cowley.

I took the opportunity to reread the post, and the grievance is that some of Castle archives are missing, as Bill mentions in his first post.

Cowley:
In the process though, several hundred tapes (and their resultant digital renditions) were never returned to the AMA, (A list of these missing tapes and disks can be found at www.Rich-Cowley.com/VaultDVD_FullCatalog.xls.)

Judging by the checkout logs Mr. McIlhany signed at CBS acknowledging he took possession of these materials, I've concluded that, either from a lack of diligence or with full knowledge, Mr. Mcllhany is responsible for the disappearance of these items. I believe this behavior is contrary to our club's standards.

* In the first place, neither Jim Starr nor Bill McIlhany signed (nor remember signing) any checkouts logs at CBS! Cowley would not know about that since he was never there when the work was done! CBS printed labels for the DVDs and D-VHS copies they made and that was their record of work done. Jim Starr and I had our own handwritten lists of the tapes taken to CBS and returned with DVD copies to the Castle. Those lists were discarded after the tapes and DVDs were returned. During four years Jim and I made dozens of trips to and from CBS and never recall signing anything. This is simply a clumsy fabrication by Cowley, possibly based on something said by Tim Holly. Both Cowley and Holly were NEVER at Jurassic Park when Jim and I were there!

Without arbitration (or grievance in this case), the AMA still can state some of their archives missing, which goes against Bill's statement that no files are missing, and that according to David Alexander, no compensation has been given for work done at Milt's request. I don't think any of this seems right to anyone, mostly Bill, but it seems even more inane to not resolve the issue through the established rules of the AMA, as Terrance has posted on this board. That degrades all the work Bill has done, as well as anyone else who tries to keep the Castle archives maintained, even that scum Rich Cowley.

So as I stated originally, I'm trying to figure what the purpose of the grievance is and why it has escalated to this. I thank everyone for their response and their open opinions, as I can't have been informed without asking questions, or "noising off" as NCMarsh put it, and getting answers and educated opinions.

So as the conversation on the Genii forum continues, I agree with NCMarsh's original post:

"The last thing I want to get involved with is castle politics. But I can't help saying..how sketchy it looks to an outsider to try to "keep in the dark" one side of the story, prior to a hearing at which only the other side will be presented...."