Is it ethical. Is it wrong?

[Professor808]

Is it ethical? Is it wrong?

If I decide to switch my thumb break to a pinky break, did I just create my own effect? If I purchase a magic DVD, learn a trick, and use a red deck as opposed to the blue deck the teacher was using, can I now sell this trick? Apparently the answer is yes.

If you are a member of the international brotherhood of magicians you should know the code of ethics, specifically the one stating: All members of the International Brotherhood of Magicians agree to oppose the willful exposure to the public of any principles of the Art of Magic, or the methods employed in any magic effect or illusion. Even if a IBM member dose choose to break this code by stealing another members effect and selling it, could he be held liable in court? How can we as a society of magicians hold one another legally and morally accountable? If we could find a way, would anyone who wants to learn the secrets of magic have to first become an IBM of SAM member and sign legal documents to stop the whoring of magic? If so what about those who choose not to join but figure out tricks and effects on their own, would they still be able to sell off your creation without permission or punishment?

Will magicians have to take the protection of their creations into their own hands by never showing, selling, or even talking about created effects with other magicians again. There for killing the progression of magic?

Many magicians who do try and protect their creation such as Andre Cole famous for walking on water and has exclusive contracts to make sure that he is the only magician know for the effect, which is his right for spending the time creating this illusion. Which many other magicians, morally, asked Andre if they could use his illusion. Is Andre selfish for wants his name to be known as the only one who can do this effect? Does that make it okay for Criss Angel to use it without any permission by Cole?

Magician Selbit created the sawing a woman in half illusion and was stolen by another magician who made sure his name was attached to the illusion, there for ruining Selbits career. Is this okay because there is no real law to protect magicians.

Even to this day it is still going on. Amateur magicians learning trade secrets and illusions and effects taught to them by the creators themselves to help them gain more experience in magic, only to steal the creators ideas and make low budget DVDs selling them across the county to make money, why? Because it’s not illegal? So why not?

What can we as magicians do? Is there a law out there to protect us? Magic methods can be considered forms of “trade secret”, which falls under the law of confidentiality or contract law that can be used to protect the methods.  So before you let those magicians into your next magic session, be prepared to have everyone sign a non-disclosure contract so that if they do take your creation you could take them to court. That’s a lot of writing and reading before everyone can start hanging out. Maybe we should just stop allowing new members to join and just shutdown the open membership of magic as it is. Only to help protect magic secrets of course.

But with those non-disclosure contracts, dose that not hurt the magic community. I remember when I first started in magic; everyone was so friendly and sharing. It is most magician’s nature to want to help one another, do we have to become cold and judge people before we get to know them. Because that one day when you decide later down the road, that the coin manipulation you came up with and generously shared with everyone is now one someone’s DVD as their creation and you can no longer release it as new.

Is there no real way that we can protect magic? Even with non-disclosure contracts, it will not always hold up in every court. Should we just give up and let all magic be “open domain”? Or will we just have to live as is, with magicians trying to make a living doing the art they love. Giving creations to the marketplace with the possibility someone can take their hard work, change the name and take money right out of there topits?(magic humor is stupid)

I am not talking about those who choose to copy a DVD and trade it online, sell it, or even give it to someone. There are laws that protect us from that, I am talking about those people who choose to steal your idea and make it their own. When will we be able to patent or copy write your magic effect? Should we be able to protect them or would that stop the creative process? Magicians are kind and friendly now and ethically we ask one other to use their move in our effect, but how long will that last. When it is protected by law will it be too late for magicians to trust and work with each other?

[gaafman]

I think there is a large role for us as magic consumers. We can control the market better than the law can do. If we all decide not to buy a certain rip-off product because we support the original creator the rip-off artist will have no market to support. So I think it is important to start with judging your own magic "consumerism" and then stimulate others to think about it.
"een betere wereld begint bij jezelf" -> a better world starts with you!

[SleightDini]

I agree. And sometimes we have both consumerism AND the law on our side. A product can be a rip-off product because the rip-off artist is selling another magicians material/effect without permission, but also if you look closer you may find the rip-off artist may have made false claims about their product. Then you can take them to task for fraud, false advertising, etc. Case in point, Laurence Miller and his Bicycleman DVD. This site exposes his fraud.
http://www.bicyclemandvd.com
Apparently, many magic shops have stopped selling his DVD because of his fraud.
Of course, those of us who have been in the magic community for some time, know how to spot a fraud from an original, but laypeople that are just getting into magic, those are the type of people the rip-off artist will target. They don't know any better. Our larger role for us as magic consumers can be in politely asking a magic shop that sells a knock-off, to "knock it off". If they don't, we can let them know we will tell our friends and take our business to a reputable magic shop in the future.