TAKE DOWN EXPOSURE!!!

[Guest]

"10,000+ Hits a day and growing" It's been up for a year!

[Guest]

Am I the only person who doesn't search for magic tricks on line?

[Guest]

Originally posted by mrgoat:
Mr Townsend, I think when you see the high quality magic that is being exposed by professionals like this:

http://www.learnmagictricks.org/video.php?v=6571

you will change your mind and call for immediate harrassment of the site owner.

I am sickened by this.

I use this effect in my weekly restaurant gig and now I am screwed.

Damnit.

Oh MAN!!!! What a bummer!!! Not THAT one! Any trick but that one. Crap! Merde! Poo poo! The next thing you'll tell me is that they have an exposee of the 21 Card Trick.

[Guest]

Dear Gord,

I think you'll find MrGoat was being facetious...

Paul Gordon

[Guest]

Originally posted by Tom Dobrowolski:
f.) There is a real risk of new material not being released except in a very limited underground method.

So there is a plus side!

[Guest]

Originally posted by Paul Gordon:
Dear Gord,

I think you'll find MrGoat was being facetious...

Paul Gordon

It's my version of comedy.

:)

[Guest]

Goaty, you've been providing comic relief here for quite some time (e.g., Chris Bliss Diss thread and your absolute love for Jakob Nielson's theories in all things internet)...

Tom Dobrowolski wrote:

All of this has been discussed on here before a number of times ... Bottom line seems to be:

a.) It is a bad and growing issue

...

Toms summary provides food for thought. While some of the implications of Toms first observation have been previously discussed, I'd like to highlight the point, since for me it goes to the crux of the matter:

Is the issue of exposure really a growing issue?

Im not so sure that it is, whether one judges the question using a 20 year period or a 100 year period.

CHS

[Guest]

Growing as in what is posted stays out on the intenet and may go viral... IMHO yes.

[Guest]

As opposed to something being put in print and staying in circulation in public libraries?

In practical effect, I wonder if there's any difference, Jonathan.

By the way, name 5 magic tricks that have truly gone viral. If you can't name 5, it ain't a problem, IMHO.

C.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Magicam:
...By the way, name 5 magic tricks that have truly gone viral. If you can't name 5, it ain't a problem, IMHO.

C.

Ambitious card, 'two card monte', self levitation, color changing deck (attention video) and the quarter bite come to mind off the top as far as muggle awareness goes.

Now if you include "tutorials" and "performance clips" by folks other than the inventor of a trick on YouTube or similar the list grows much longer and includes things like Armando Lucero's Menagerie.

[Guest]

Just got off the phone with David Castle. He said anything that isn't public domain and is a blatant copyright infringement he will take down IF HE IS NOTIFIED. It was obvious from our conversation that he isn't going to go out of his way to research the effects and figure out whats ok to expose and whats not. But he will take it down if contacted.

It was also apparent that he is not the most well read magician so much of the material he might think is public domain but isn't. So he needs to be told what is.

All the best,

Kranzo

[Guest]

Nathan, that was very cool of you to talk to the guy. Hurray!

About effects... all are up for grabs AND EXPOSURE, not a legal issue. Remember you-know-who's coins across?

But as to performances from videos or text borrowed from books... that is something well worth telling the guy about.

[Guest]

Hey Nate that's a great start.

Originally posted by Magicam:
Tom Dobrowolski wrote:

All of this has been discussed on here before a number of times ... Bottom line seems to be:

a.) It is a bad and growing issue

...

Toms summary provides food for thought. While some of the implications of Toms first observation have been previously discussed, I'd like to highlight the point, since for me it goes to the crux of the matter:

Is the issue of exposure really a growing issue?

Im not so sure that it is, whether one judges the question using a 20 year period or a 100 year period.

CHS

It may be more the ease of accessing and distributing the information. Technology has made it easier to capture and distribute information more widely then ever before. Internet savvy people with a passing interest or out of curiosity or boredom can find just about anything on the web and distribute it widely within minutes.

Also if you take into consideration the glut of material being released these days the percentages are probably about the same.

This raises another point I avoided in my first post. With so many magic inventors/creators these days releasing the millionth version of THEIR NEW, NEVER DONE BEFORE method of self levitation and coin in bottle or whatever else they came up with last night and made into an e-book or download I think magic is encouraging the dissemination of secrets which leads to this exposure.

[Guest]

Thanks Nathan for calling! Make sure he takes off your effects... i saw some 2 year old trying to explain box monster... ridiculous

I spoke with him too. He said the same thing, if you tell him to take it off, then he will (if its exposure of a marketed effect). But he also made it clear that he does not patrol the site, and like Nathan said, he definitely does not seem up to date on a lot of things... including getting his own place to live at 30 years old. haha :p

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jesse Feinberg:
Thanks Nathan for calling! Make sure he takes off your effects... i saw some 2 year old trying to explain box monster... ridiculous

I spoke with him too. He said the same thing, if you tell him to take it off, then he will (if its exposure of a marketed effect). But he also made it clear that he does not patrol the site, and like Nathan said, he definitely does not seem up to date on a lot of things... including getting his own place to live at 30 years old. haha :p

LOL!!!

Kranzo

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jonathan Townsend:

Originally posted by Magicam:
[b]...By the way, name 5 magic tricks that have truly gone viral. If you can't name 5, it ain't a problem, IMHO.

C.

Ambitious card, 'two card monte', self levitation, color changing deck (attention video) and the quarter bite come to mind off the top as far as muggle awareness goes.

Now if you include "tutorials" and "performance clips" by folks other than the inventor of a trick on YouTube or similar the list grows much longer and includes things like Armando Lucero's Menagerie. [/b]

Mea culpa, Jonathan. I have a vague idea what "going viral" means, but couldn't confirm or disprove your offering of examples. Did any of them circulate several hundreds of thouands of times?

Clay

[Guest]

Folks, when your co-worker shows you the Criss Angel self levitation explanation video online it's gone.

Is there a proper marketing term for when the early adapters have found a thing and the wannabees are not getting "oh how clever you are" type feedback from the early adapters because it's no longer news?

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jonathan Townsend:
Is there a proper marketing term for when the early adapters have found a thing and the wannabees are not getting "oh how clever you are" type feedback from the early adapters because it's no longer news?

The Tipping Point would fit...

(Great book btw)

[Guest]

Did any of them circulate several hundreds of thouands of times?

Clay [/QB]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KrdBUFeFtY

8 million views.

although the explanation video has 'only' 850,000 views.

Still an impressive number, but it does suggest (nay, prove) that only 10% of people that view a trick *want* to know how it's done...

Probably.

[Guest]

Without belaboring this issue-topic-problem by echoing the arguments of experts who deal with the consequences of our technologies and know far more than I--namely that the democratization of information and how intellectual property is becoming more and more difficult to safeguard. Even the issue of personal privacy is under siege.

Once info or data is "out there," it can be ripped off and freely accessed or distributed. People in the music business are seeking more imaginative remedies to Open Source and pirating. If a magic trick is marketed and sold, you cannot stop it from being plundered. Does anyone think that producers of content in China heed copyright here?
Dream on.

As soon as I post a PDF file or e-book on my Website, it does not take long for it to be freely snagged and distributed.

As Ben Franklin once quipped. "Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead."

If a secret appears on a Website with links, the secret is going to be shared with more people in a shorter period of time than in any other time in history.

Want to keep a secret?

Tell no one.
Trust no one.
Show no one.

Big Brother is a blabbermouth.

Onward...

[Guest]

I'd argue instead for treating magic knowledge as a token of trust passed from inventor to trustee. Something of a private currency which is not suitable for all public debits.

This approach pretty much obviates much of the commerce in magicdom but it does get us back on track to have performable material which is not already accompanied by video tutorials posted by students for all and sundry via courtesy of YouTube.

Not quite secrets but something akin.

[Guest]

wait. what where we talking about? haha

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jesse Feinberg:
... what where we talking about? ...

Were talking about a big-fat dilemma for magi world-wide.

After all, if Jon R. (for example) is providing such strict advice re secret-keeping, yet still posting/selling/giving/publishing secrets, that tells me that he (like many others) sits on the sharp horns of a dilemma.

Thus endeth this conversation (for the next few minutes, at least).

CHS

[Guest]

I'm not only sitting on the horns, I'm impaled and quite bloody...
My unbidden advice is (was) for those who have real secrets...

Robert Frost: "I keep secrets in order to secrete..."

So...

I'll shut my mouth now...

JR

[Guest]

[QUOPeople in the music business are seeking more imaginative remedies to Open Source and pirating. [/QB][/QUOTE]

Sorry Mr R,

What on earth does Open Source software have to do with piracy?

Damian

[Guest]

I'm someone who performs magic for a living. I don't create magic and I don't sell my own tricks. I make a living performing sleight of hand magic for lay people. I'm not famous but I'm pretty good at what I do.

I don't get what all the hubub is about. None of this exposure on youtube or torrent or masked magicians has affected my work one iota. When a big illusion was revealed by the Masked Magician, I heard a professional magician say, "Now I can't do that illusion." Why? When you're out there working for real people and you're confident in what you do, exposure doesn't matter. The pirates can't expose YOU. When you put so much of yourself in the trick, it won't even look like the one they saw exposed on TV. I saw the guy on youtube revealing the "Best card trick in the world" (see link above) and I have to tell you, it was the worst presentation I've ever seen of a trick. He had no personality, no timing, looked like he had no interest himself in the trick. I can do the same trick to a lay audience who has seen the explanation of said trick and they'll still be fooled. And I'm not even that good (not good like Daryl or Ammar or Williamson) but what I am good at is being me.

I performed the Linking Rings the night after the Masked Magician revealed the secret on national television (I even heard people say, "I know how this works, I saw it last night") and they were still fooled ("maybe he's using different rings" they said). No, I was using the same rings. It was my presentation that fooled them. It was my personality, my character, AND THEY CAN'T EXPOSE THAT!

I don't worry about exposure. I just go out there every single night of the week and perform magic tricks. I don't sit at home and worry about the magic tricks being revealed...I go out there and perform them.

And I rarely have a problem with people knowing the secrets from youtube or wherever. I'm a nice guy and they like me and they come back to the restaurants I perform to see more tricks...because they like me.

That's the real secret.

Bob Infantino

[Guest]

Is this like arguing that biology text books don't interfere with the world's oldest profession?

[Brandon Hall]

Steve V, I think you got your answer loud and clear.

[Guest]

I don't expect a magician that only performs to get why this exposure is so disturbing. It doesn't effect you AS much.

Magic effect sales can't be compared to music sales either. They don't make the same type of numbers. So if you sell your first batch of a new trick, and everyone just pirates/trades it... your NOT selling that many more! That is sad. Inventors of magic are not making any money, and personally I'd rather keep it to myself then get a trick ripped off. And eventually magic will have very little new content, nothing cool to perform at your next gig! :(

You better do something about it! Get out there and call people like whats his face, and that biotch valentina. Get these dedicated exposure sites trashed. Or live a magical life of "oh, I saw that on youtube, blah blah..."

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jesse Feinberg:
...Magic effect sales can't be compared to music sales either....if you sell your first batch of a new trick, and everyone just pirates/trades it...I'd rather keep it to myself then get a trick ripped off. ...

I do sympathize. Having some of my work out there without permission and being shown around on video and tutorial and ... is not such a nice feeling. Did they at least start a rumor that you were dead before showing your work around? In the mean time you may want to look at some basic legalities and social reality for our community as it exists in the larger market - since we still accept trades of 'secrets' for dollars around here.

If you are willing to SELL stuff, and there's no NDA, then you are open to having it exposed on YouTube and wherever. You sold it. They can do as they see fit with it. They being anyone.

Since open (a muggle can obtain it) sales is exposure you may want to start your crusade by ...

[Guest]

Your right, its a sad reality that they can do whatever they want with it. I'm not even worried so much about youtube though. People would need to search for a trick of mine, and maybe find something... so far nothing of mine is up there like that. But its when loosers like David J Castle make a site that literally organizes and encourages more... that screws things up for everyone! I'm just trying to put a stop to those horrible websites. They should not exist.

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jesse Feinberg:
..a site that literally organizes and encourages more... that screws things up for everyone! ...

It's a challenge to explain to them without loosing one's temper.

I can assure you though that in discussion with these people things will go better if you can put your awareness into their point of view. Not many people set out to do "bad" things by willful intent. As difficult as it may be to believe, most folks do what they feel is the best they can do, and so it becomes very awkward to tell them they are "wrong" from your point of view.

Whatever you do with this person and their site, remember that the law, the very spirit of the internet and common courtesy are on their side. To them and to the muggle world you are asking someone to give up what they believe to be the right thing. To the world at large, when WE accepted the "cash on the barrel" trade of money for magic, we also accepted the "bottom of the barrel" where folks sell copies of things and sell secrets for cut-rate prices ... even vanity.

No small trick to help someone find a better way of doing things without giving into your own anger, especially when they are stepping on your toes.

Sorry if I sound like Yoda about this. I have to side with civility here even with so many temptations toward Sith-like agendas.

[Guest]

Say, for example, I was a spectator at a magic show. I saw a magician do a really impressive trick where he caused a dollar bill to float in the air. I was blown away and thought, "That guy is really good! How could he possibly do it?"

Later, sitting at home, I google the words MAGIC DOLLAR BILL TRICK.

Up comes a YouTube clip headed: 'Floating Levitation Magic Hummer Card Trick Dollar Bill'

The man in the clip is advertising to sell me the secret on eBay.

I'm tempted, but I see in the section headed 'Related Clips' another video from the same user 'Explanation of Floating Levitation Hummer Magic Card Trick'.

This isn't the explanation, but another ad, but now in the 'Related Clips' I see a video from a different user headed 'Hummer Levitation Trick revealed'

Now I know how the trick is done. I'm quite disappointed I was fooled by such a simple method.

My estimation of the performer drops and the mystery of magic is no longer as mysterious.


Getting back to Dave J Castle's site, if I stumble upon his site I can find the secret to just about any trick I want to. He even has a forum now where you can describe a trick you saw and a fellow forum member will tell you how it works.


I agree that, in the exposure of marketed effects, the exposers are stealing money from the creators and the retailers of those tricks.

But I also think that the intentional and deliberate exposure, on line, purely for the sake of exposure is really hurting magic.

When you perform, you might find your audience is baffled by your tricks and you can easily say the internet exposure doesn't hurt you. But it's AFTER they see you do your tricks that they might be curious enough to google a description of what you did, and there - for all to see - is your trick spread eagle for everyone to see.

Will they run back to you and say "I know how you did it!!!" Probably not. They may not run back to you at all.

[Guest]

YES!!! Exactly, thank you Mr. Ellis! I know you've been on a quest to end this type of thing, let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I personally like calling these people at 4 in the morning with conversation :)

People like Davey J Classic suck. Bottom line. You're right Jon, he probably is doing the best he thinks he can. You nailed it. But to me, it is still no excuse. He sucks. I told him that. I also told him that hes ruining things, and he understood. But it doesn't get shut down? Someday, I will be an elite hacker, and totally ruin his moms vista junk box. ;)

Youtube is a whole different story. Impossible to fix...

[Guest]

Originally posted by Nathan Kranzo:
Just got off the phone with David Castle. He said anything that isn't public domain and is a blatant copyright infringement he will take down IF HE IS NOTIFIED. It was obvious from our conversation that he isn't going to go out of his way to research the effects and figure out whats ok to expose and whats not. But he will take it down if contacted.

It was also apparent that he is not the most well read magician so much of the material he might think is public domain but isn't. So he needs to be told what is.

All the best,

Kranzo

You have to understand that there are different definitions working here. Public Domain is a legal term. It refers to material that has either gone out of copyright (or patent protection) or was never copyrighted or patented in the first place, but was published without the benefit of either copyright or patent.

Modern Coin Magic is in the public domain, as are all of Hoffman, and many other sources we would like to have protection for.

Copyright protection has become automatic in recent years, and does not expire as quickly as it did when MCM was published. Under the new law, this book would still be protected.

Copyright protection only applies to specific wording, drawing or anything that can be notated or represented by a graphic. For example, until Labanotation was invented, dances were not copyrightable. Specific performances of public domain material can be copyrighted and so can arrangements of public domain music. This is why you have to pay royalties on Sousa marches performed by the Eastman Symphony, but you don't have to pay them on synthesized sequences you work out yourself. That's complicated, but you will find that it's true.

The Criss Angel material on YouTube is copyrighted. He or his people will have to get that removed. None of us can do it, unless we work for him.

If I purchase a manuscript for a trick, and I rewrite the instructions so that I am not using the same terminology or wording that the copyrighted version uses, I can legally publish it. It's unethical, but legal.

And if you have invented a trick, but never published it, and someone else figures it out, then you don't have much you can do about it but whine.

[Guest]

If someone changed the name of one of my tricks, made the gaffs themselves, and totally re-wrote the instructions... it would still be a copyright infringement. The inspiration could be proven, it would be a pain to defend, but even paraphrasing and changing things around is still a copyright infringement.

But it doesn't really matter what we think/know about these things... It's whats out there that you could be flagging as spam RIGHT NOW! Even wikipedia can be changed around a little. LETS GO!

[Guest]

Jesse wrote:
If someone changed the name of one of my tricks, made the gaffs themselves, and totally re-wrote the instructions... it would still be a copyright infringement. The inspiration could be proven ... even paraphrasing and changing things around is still a copyright infringement...

Jesse:

All due respect, but I believe you have been badly misinformed. Based on my (only rudimentary) understanding, the scenario you paint is precisely the kind of thing that would not be a copyright infringement. It is the copyright holders particular expression of a concept that is protected, not the concept itself.

Think parody as an example.

If Im the one who is badly misinformed, someone please chime in with a concrete rebuttal.

Clay

[added by edit]

This from the federal copyright office: (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wnp)

"What Is Not Protected by Copyright?

Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others:
...
...
Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration [emphasis added].
..."

[Guest]

Not so Jesse. I can point you to at least 3 card effects that do precisely what you say. The name of the effects have been changed but it is the same trick.

If what you say is true why aren't the magic vendors that sell these type of knock offs out of business for copyright infringements?

[Guest]

I might be wrong, but it's what I had explained to me. Specifically that if things are paraphrased, they are still protected. I'm not as worried about someone ripping a full trick off and selling it as a knock off. It's generally a matter of keeping it in stock to avoid that. I can't go to china and tell them to stop. I just think ADVERTISING that you can make money exposing the latest greatest effect is absolutely insane. That's are money, not yours! haha

And pirating dvd material is scary! I just think we should all keep on top of this stuff... what can we do to end it?

FLAG YOUTUBE EXPOSURE VIDEOS!

[Guest]

Originally posted by Jesse Feinberg:
I might be wrong, but it's what I had explained to me. ...

Ah... the old problem of the blind leading the naive.


The cogent adult side of this issue is like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch. It's and ex argument. It's gone moot. It's whining in the fjords. So to put this dead parrot of an argument to rest:

Jesse, if someone were to buy your items and then rewrite the instructions and offer them for sale - and then make videos teaching them - and then post video tutorials exposing the material... they would be doing nothing illegal.

Now were someone to do such thing and you took ofence and were to so much as make comment about them in public in a way that a judge could construe as disparaging them or their business (even if it's selling derivitives of your work) you may well find yourself the defendant of a legal action and perhaps also a civil rights suit.

If you sell any magic trick you are also selling the right to expose it and sell it to others and to alter it and sell an unlimited number of these altered items as well. And that's the law. I happen to sympathize with your position and also have to argue for what we currently have a legal system in our society.

I wish you the best. Give your participation in an open market of magic a good reconsideration.