Some of you may have read about my TARDIS effect. Needless to say, I believe it is a killer, killer stage effect enterance/exit.


The method I have written down, and hidden very secretly, but I want legal protection and ownership too. I am not sure if I will see the effect yet, but I do have several questions:



1. How can I copy write this idea, to make me the legal owner of the effect/method?

2. If I do this, can anyone who knows the secret perform it, or would they have to seek my permission before performing it?

3. If I do manage to become the "legal owner" of this trick, and I never sell the idea; will I be the only magician on earth who can perform this trick legally?



If I am right, I will patent this trick, perform it for a few years, and then sell it on to other magicians, because the rest of the magical world deserves to have the trick too.


:)


Tom
xx

Copywrite laws are tricky. You would do best to consult a patent attorney.

There are books and websites that tell you how to do it but those are equally as tricky and at times can be a minefield. They may advetise that there is an attorney for consultation or one that even designed the site or wrote the book. However, this is akin to diagnosing yourself online.You can go this route but be prepared to be screwed as your best interest is not in mind, only them making money. If it is a free site.... you will definitely get what you pay for. So, please consult a patent/copywrite attorney.

Peace.

Tom, I am not a lawyer, so I may be wrong, but I believe that "copyright" will only protect the writen words you use... But it will not necessarily protect the method. You will need a "patent" to protect the mechanism of the illusion. I think that that is as close as you can get to protecting intelectual property, that and jurisprudence that is going your way.

Keep in mind though that all of this is only good if you are willing to sue the people stealing the idea... That can be expensive, and depending on the solvability of these people...

Hope this helps.

Louis

I make my living writing, and I have quite a few copyrights. Copyright's easy. Patents are hard.
Oh, and comedy, too. Comedy's hard, too.

Copyright's pretty cheap.
But you can't copyright and idea.
You can copyright a manuscript or a recording or an image...and a few other things.

But ideas aren't copyrightable.
The expression of an idea...THAT'S copyrightable.

You CAN patent ideas, in a sense. That is to say, if you've worked out a unique physical way of accomplishing a thing, you can hire a patent attorney, do a patent search, create an explanation of what the thing is and how it works, complete with some very specific and detailed drawings and register your patent.

That's expensive.

And then you wait for, usually, a couple of years or so before the government gets around to granting your patent. That's what "patent pending" means. It means the people who created the thing are waiting to hear...but it also means that they've got dibs on the thing and anyone else who submits a patent after theirs is too late.
(That's a simplification, but a pretty good one, I think)

You've seen the reports here of people ripping off other people's illusions.
Well, unless they've been patented, there's no legal recourse.

And to be patented, A thing must be unique mechanically or, in the case of things like grain or medicines, unique on a molecular level. Maybe the best way to put it is "intrinsically unique."

You can't patent a thing just because your version is a different color and features brass fittings instead of brushed aluminum.

But many illusions aren't patented simply because the papers submitted would reveal the secret, and anyone can pay the government a few bucks and get the papers. Voila! End of secret!

More often than not, When discussions take place here about stealing other people's illusions, the actual point of the discussion is one of ethics and morality.

If, while visiting another magician, you happen to see an illusion over in the corner, and you are left alone with it, and start monkeying with it, and figure out how it works, and go home and build your own...
If it's patented, you're in trouble.
If it's not, you're just a jerk.

Where the discussion point comes is often here: You see someone onstage do a thing. Because you're a magician, you figure out how it could be done (In fact, you probably figure out HOW it's done, but no one told you), go home and build your own.

You then argue that you have merely figured out a way to accomplish what you saw onstage. You have seen the IDEA of the thing and figured out a mechanical way to do it.
In fact, maybe your version is accomplished in a completely different way.
THERE'S where the point of argument often comes in around here.


Morality versus legality.

Yes, as far as methods go there really is no other ways to protect them to be very selective in distributing the effect. The real problem is that patents are public. So essentially the blueprints are out there for all to see and exploit. And like pointed out, no one will pursuit the wrongdoers unless you do it yourself and frankly its SO expensive that no magic effect or method is worth it.

In the end there really is no way to legally protect magic, that's why we have SO many copies of every possible effect there is because there really isn't much someone can do about it. It is very unfair, but that's just the way it is. I am in Finland ans our law is VERY interesting...I once talked with a lawyer about exposure in a public forum and our copyright law spesifies that it does not apply to magic and magician's performance (nor clows btw).

What may be legal is not neccessarily ethical. Most of us here are very ethical and respect our fellow magicians and creators.

Does anyone else see the irony of someone wanting to copyright a trick, the name of which is in fact copywriten and registered to someone else?

Good point Payne! I personally thought its only a working title....but time will tell.

Well, T.A.R.D.I.S. is an acronym, so not sure how copyright laws apply to such. Now, I WOULD think that by now they would have trademarked that name. Can't trademark the IMAGE of "The" T.A.R.D.I.S." since it is a police call box. Yep- Dr Who Geek here... since the Hartnell Days!

Yay! Doctor Who geeks unite!


The name "TARDIS" is a working name in progress. I really need a better name, as I also do for "Ghost". And yes, the name "Tardis" is copy-written

(cool new words like "copy-written" make the world more fun!)


What do you suggest I do about my idea then? What would you do? Just set it up and perform it? If I do this, then whats to stop say "Bob" coming along, working out my trick, getting the patent for himself and then SUING ME! :o


Tom
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I don't think you would need to worry about "Bob" getting a patent and suing you... Just keep the circle small. In the end someone will copy it anyway, that's just the unpleasant truth in our business. Very unethical, totally wrong but it unfortunately happens all the time.

Horace Goldin spent a fortune trying to keep others from performing the sawing illusion in its many forms. Didn't work out too well for him.

The best way to hide a secret is ...

To keep it for yourself.

LOL

Someone said : Why do we ask someone if he/she could keep a secret if ourself we're not able to keep it ?

Anyway, I once had a talk with Jim Steinmeyer about protecting ideas and he told me aswell that it is very difficult to do so.
For exemple, havin' written your idea, even just a small part, on the net will make it nearly impossible to protect it.
You need to find the right persons you can trust to work your ideas out (i.e. professional illusion builders), maybe get signed an discloser agreement and such things.
Do it first, before the others and film it. Like this you'll have a proof that it is your idea.

Oliver.

One thing that Steinmeyer has done is to use the Design Patent. This type of patent does not cover the actual method or device but rather how it looks (oranamental design). Oragami was patented in this way and this type of patent is suitable to certain tricks and not others. Nice thing about the design patent is you don't need to include how the trick works or even what it does, just some drawings of how it looks.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's copyright, not copy write. It's the legal right to the copy (i.e., the written words).


The name TARDIS is probably copyrighted, but, more important, it is a registered trademark of the BBC; that's much greater legal protection than a copyright.