MagicbyAlfred wrote:Noble of you to come to Tom's defense, but I don't think I'm going to be searching this Forum's history. I'm well aware of Tom's many comments on the topic of copyright and the Teller case in particular, and frankly, they are filled with a great deal of MISinformation.
I am aware that there are a lot of crooks around who put a lot of effort into pushing the idea that creators have no rights to their work, especially on this forum. I'm rarely impressed by crooks' arguments, Alfred.
When a sentence doesn't even have internal logic, it doesn't matter who says it, judge or not. If they say crap like "The fact that the earth is round prove that it is flat", they are not to be trusted.
This judge is extra weird. Why would anyone, after a correct ruling, write something that basically negate the ruling?
Magic tricks
are dramatic works. So saying something that, essentially, means "dramatic works do not receive copyright protection, but dramatic works are entitled to copyright protection", is pure nonsense that doesn't even qualify as a paradox.
It would make sense if they meant "the ability to perform magic", because a skill can't be protected. The ability to play the guitar have no protection, but music compositions have. Just like magical compositions (tricks).
Yes there are artistic work that are exempt from copyright. Those limitations and exceptions are few,
extremely well defined, and magic tricks are not listed among those.
Talking about "effects" and "methods" is pointless. Those are just random labels we have decided to use in our "notation system", and are no more real than what a treble clef of bass clef are outside the notation system for music. For some reason, we've decided that it is easier to divide our documentation into one part where we guess or fantasize how an onlooker might interpret our work, and one part where it is described how to duplicate the work. That division isn't real, it doesn't exist outside the documentation. You can't perform an "effect", because there is no "effect". "Effect" isn't real. And there is no "method". There's only the work.
The work is what you perform, that is what make up your expression, and that is what is covered by copyright.
Richard is completely correct, you can't copyright your fantasies of how strangers might interpret the work. There's no IP legislation for wishful thinking. But the work is covered by the same copyright as all other artistic work.
For some reason, a lot of americans have the belief that no creator ever own their own work as their default baseline, and I've never understood why. All can't be crooks, right?