Is it unethical to perform a trick if you sold the book it's in?

IMO, no. Books are for learning, not performance rights. That said, I think most magicians keep their books. Mostly.

What if you bought the book secondhand or borrowed it?

I'm definitely for supporting an artist who I admire and where possible will order directly from them, but what about those who have passed? How do the likes of Vernon, Fechter, Leipzig... profit from my buying their books new?

Obviously, they don't, but it may likely be that their estates, i.e. their heirs, do.

In addition to their estates, you are also supporting the publishers, editors, writers, illustrators, dealers, etc., that bring the work of Vernon, Fechter, Leipzig....to you.

As for performing something after passing the source on (whether by selling or gifting), I feel that if you sold/gifted the source, you must've felt it wasn't worth owning. By having two people know or perform material from one source, you are taking a sale away from those who worked to bring it to you. You, yourself, have essentially gained the knowledge for free, or at a reduced cost if you don't resell at the full price. If I felt compelled to perform something, I think the least I can do is own a copy of the book, DVD, etc., from which it came.

Illegal no, unethical yes...

It's the same with the so called "television performance rights". Unethical, well to a degree, but by no means illegal.

If I learned to play guitar from a book, should I never play guitar again if I sell the book? Or if I learn to play a Beatles tune from an anthology (shamless plug) of their compositions, and then sell the book or give it away, shall I forbid myself to ever play that tune again?

I don't believe that authors can reasonably expect that the sale of a book to one person will be the end of that book's use. Those of us who write books come to understand what to expect from book sales, and also understand that they will be resold. We figure the price that makes sense for the sales we'll have, and resign ourselves to the fact that resales take place. It's just a fact of life.

Ebooks are a different issue. Someone can buy an ebook, make copies, keep the original and sell the copies on ebay. They are not just making their investment back, they are attempting to profit unfairly from someone else's efforts and creativity.

What if a magician dies and leaves behind a large collection of scarce books? Should they all be burned?

- entity

Well put, entity- a cogent argument...

Most creator's and authors will tell you it doesn't bother them. It mostly bothers those who have no claim to such a book/dvd in the first place. I've seen this question raised before, and I heard from creator's and author's all say the same thing. Once you buy it, it's yours to do with it you want. Just don't make illegal copies.

When it comes to limited runs, I go with my instinct. I know a certain author wants to keep his secrets from spreading too wide, which is one of the reasons why he printed 60 copies of his manuscript. For me to buy the manuscript, learn and continue to use the secrets, then re-sell it for a little less yet continue to perform the material... for me to do that, I'd feel I'd be getting the secrets at a deep discount; maybe deeper than the author would like. If every buyer of such material sold it after reading, part of the author's purpose would be thwarted (the part about keeping the secret a secret for the Few).

Other readers who bought the manuscript, use the material, and choose to keep it to themselves... those people might feel cheated as well. They bought a copy with the understanding that the information wasn't going to be used by hundreds of other second-hand buyers. If everyone were to sell their copy, where's the reward for the original buyer who keeps his copy if he could read, sell, and continue to perform for $50 instead of $250?



If he's dead, he can't use the secrets anymore (something tells me those in the afterlife wouldn't be impressed, anyway). A new owner would now have the right to perform the material, so long as he kept the book. In my example, if all 60 of the owners kept their manuscripts and used them, died, then left the books to others, there would still be only 60 people using the material (in a perfect world).

I have a book that I bought years ago written by a famous magician who is no longer alive. On the back of the title page there appears the following:

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Including performance rights for national or syndicated television, video tapes. lectures and first person performance rights over conflicting acts----"

Forget the legality of this or whether it can be enforced, my own feeling relating solely to ethics is that if the author wanted these restrictions it should have been made known in all of his advertisements and not discovered by the buyer after having paid for it by seeing the small print on the back of the title page.