Now in light of all the complaining about exposure and intellectual rights, I thought I'd share this with everyone.

I went by the Houston Museum of Natural History's new exhibit Magic: The Science of Wonder. I have to say that the exhibit was very well done and didn't expose anything outright. There were several other things wrong though.

The first is that the museum had volunteers in the exhibit showing off simple magic tricks (poorly done and unpracticed) and then immediately exposing them. This is a simple fix, especially as there are actual magicians performing there during the week: take a bit of time to properly educate the volunteers on the tricks as well as the ethics of exposing said tricks.

But for me the real problem was that at the main gift store, as well as at a separate gift store just for the exhibit, there were dozens and dozens of magic trick sets, some for as low as $25! I saw one that had several coin gimmicks (read as any trick that required a coin gimmick) for $50. I also saw a few local magicians having their own DVD's available there.

Now, the reason that magic effects are not protectable under intellectual rights or trade secret laws is because of things such as this. For $50 someone can not only know about, but have, most of the coin gimmicks we use, and for $25 more, they can purchase one of the neatly packaged magic kits revealing the cups and balls, multiplying balls, and a plethora of other things! That's why courts keep throwing our cases out: the "secrets" are available for next to nothing!

So, ladies and gentlemen, until such a time as magicians are more interested in the art of magic and less in the money, we won't be able to protect any of our routines or creations from being used or exposed.

***EDIT: Formatting***

Until a time comes? No way. Pandora's box has been opened, and we all know it. The secrets are available for pirate downloading, and anyone with an Internet connection and a credit card can buy anything from a thumb tip to a sub trunk with no questions asked.

No, things will not change, friend.

The question is what you yourself plan to do about it?

I've been throwing around ideas in my head for a while now, trying to figure out that very point. I've gone from things such as the community simply releasing materials only at venues where magicians or aspiring magicians would look such as magic shops to trying to figure out how an organization like the Screen Actor's Guild would work for magicians.

Mainly I think that it is simply a level of caring. Is putting your DVD and magic sets available for sale at the end of a museum exhibit a good idea? For sales, yes; for magic, no.

... and the dollar in the pocket always wins out...

Mandarin, it's all about the money. No furthering the art here.

Indeed. But do we care about secrets or about money? Or something else?

I'm not sure. The P2P stuff baffles me. People collect as many possible books in a single download as possible--more books than any serious person could ever digest in a lifetime.

Might I suggest that the real problem is that Magic has NEVER kept up with technology and commerce. Since the Golden Age secrets have been for sale.

Somehow the notion of some kind of magical gnosticism died out when Robert-Houdin made performing magic fashionable and socially acceptable.

A radical idea, yes? To blame Robert-Houdin?

But it's probably close to the truth.