Topic: Some ethical issues for McDonald's aces

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Posted by: mickey.w (Oct 12, 2005 5:19am)

I aplogise for opening a new thread (when there are similar topics out there), but this questions I believe are independent of other topics and have not been discussed before.

Recently I found out there is a DVD on McDonald's Aces for sale from Royal.
2 queries popped up now:

1: Who really now have the rights to sell the teaching of this routine and/ or to sell the gaff cards as a 'McDonald's Aces' pack?

2. If one wants to do so (as above stated) To whom should the permission be requested?

I live in HK, and have realised there's one shop (yes that one shop stealing from everyone) that has been doing this for a long time... and now that an official release is made and supplied by authorised dealers..., I really need some directions here. Who still owns the rights to the McDonald's Aces?

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Posted by: Uli Weigel (Oct 12, 2005 6:40am)

First of all, the so called McDonald's Aces go back to Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser of Vienna, the father of modern card magic, who invented the trick and its method. So there are no copyright issues anymore, the trick has become public domain. If the DVD teaches only a generic version, they have every right to do so.

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Posted by: Paul Sherman (Oct 12, 2005 12:40pm)

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On 2005-10-12 06:40, Uli Weigel wrote:
So there are no copyright issues anymore.

Nor were there ever.

However, it's worth mentioning that the approach commonly described today as "MacDonald's Aces" is credited to Ken Krenzel in the 20th century.

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Posted by: iamslow (Oct 12, 2005 2:27pm)

Wasn't Mc Donald a magician with one arm??

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Posted by: Jonathan Townsend (Oct 12, 2005 2:31pm)

I recall the effect from a Tannen's New Stars of Magic offering by Frank Garcia.

Is there an earlier version of the thing with Dr Krenzel's name on it?

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Posted by: Paul Sherman (Oct 12, 2005 2:49pm)

If I recall properly, Krenzel's was published in Genii prior to Garcia's. I've not read the routine, but my understanding was that Krenzel's innovation was using a different vanish for each packet.

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Posted by: Uli Weigel (Oct 12, 2005 5:43pm)

As far as I know, the "Mc Donald's 100$ Ace Trick" in Dai Vernon's More Inner Secrets of Card Magic (written by Lewis Ganson) was the starting point for the versions of Krenzel, Garcia and all the others.

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Posted by: DomKabala (Oct 12, 2005 7:33pm)

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On 2005-10-12 14:27, iamslow wrote:
Wasnt Mc Donald a magician with one arm??

Yes, and Uli Weigel is correct. :bluebikes: :bikes:

<<<KRaZy4kardz>>>

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Posted by: scorch (Oct 12, 2005 8:49pm)

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On 2005-10-12 05:19, mickey.w wrote:
1: who really now have the rights to sell the teaching of this routine and/ or to sell the gaff cards as a 'mcdonald's aces' pack?

Nobody ever owned such rights, as they do not exist. Incredible (and as unfortunate) as it may seem, magical sleights, techniques, and effects are not protected by copyright law. The only thing that is protected is the actual form of the publication. If I published a book with my Three Queens of MacBeth effect, you could go ahead and publish the same effect in your DVD without my permission and without paying me a royalty, even while I am living. The law would only prohibit you from using my descriptions of it, or my illustrations. It sucks but that's the way it is. It's all up for grabs, but in the interest of ethics you really ought to ask a living creator if you can use or borrow his/her material, and credit them appropriately.

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2. If one wants to do so (as above stated) To whom should the permission be requested?

Again, no such permission is necessary. Especially with a routine like MacDonald's Aces, which exists in so many different forms and has so many different originators of different handlings.

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Posted by: Pete Biro (Oct 12, 2005 9:45pm)

IMHO the best version is Emile Clifton's "Startled" available from Cards by Martin. Clifton's "laydown" is worth the price of admission.

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Posted by: Jonathan Townsend (Oct 12, 2005 9:47pm)

While IP in magicdom gets settled...

What we can do for now is to be very careful how we add things to our literature and be sure we give all appropriate honors to those whose works inform our own.

I have argued elsewhere for treating secrets in magic as currency, and a private currency at that. For now, in a market where one can trade muggle money for magic secrets, it helps to at least keep our literature and history in order. Also, it does not hurt to remind those whose works inspire our own that we do appreciate the trouble they took to make their work available in the first place.

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Posted by: R.E. Byrnes (Mar 2, 2011 1:57pm)

Patents are conceivable for mechanical gimmicks, small and large. patter can be copyrighted. Apart from that, though, there is scant basis for law-based protection in magic. Even if there were, damages would generally be difficult to quantify and, in any event, would rarely exceed the costs attendant to intellectual property civil litigation.

As exemplified in this forum, however, there is a potent system of informal policing and enforcement, with those perceived to have either stolen ideas or given insufficient credit subjected to exclusion, ridicule, etc. While many of these disputes degenerate into long, dull threads in which the antagonists exchange inane, laborious accusations, it is for the most part a reasonably effective, if informal, system.

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Posted by: Jonathan Townsend (Mar 2, 2011 7:52pm)

As it happens there's some legal work in place for plays and also fixed performable works which looks suitable for magic by way of the Berne convention... if anyone has the funds to take it to court.