Jonnyboy-

Thank you for your well reasoned, informative, and authoritative post.

I've refrained from saying what I think about thecharlatan's views. I'm sure he wouldn't give a rat's @ss about what this "old fuddy duddy" would have to say anyway.

And besides, I don't feel like getting banned for profanity.

Bob,

I couldn't agree with you more.

How I wish you and I lived close enough for us to go down to the corner bar to discuss some of these views.

That was an interesting read John, thank you.

Sorry if this is a little off topic now, but I'd be interested to hear your views on the future of this area - it seems to me clear that copyright law has been unable to keep up with the internet in many areas.. things like blogs using copyrighted pictures for example.. will more and more releases go down the creative commons style route?


Bob, on the contrary, I legitimately own many of your works and find them to be interesting, refereshing and well written.

Me too. The problem is that we'd probably end up spending all of our time there until the 86'd us for being too rowdy.

Bob, you're welcome, and with your background in law and mentalism, I especially appreciate your saying so. Hopefully, you will let me buy you a drink at Mindvention this year, and we can discuss this topic.

Charlatan, if you are truly interested in this topic, there is an excellent book that can be had on Amazon, titled Law and Magic, A Collection of Essays. http://www.amazon.com/Law-Magic-A-Collec......c+essays

As for where I believe the future is going, with the Internet, it is much more difficult to stop and police infringement, and there is a sense of entitlement to content that is being inculcated in today's youth. So free sharing is likely to increase, not decrease, despite the best efforts of creators and publishers to digitally mark, encrypt, etc. Magic is fortunate in one sense, in that there seems to be a higher code of ethics that many (certainly not all) follow, so that reliance on copyright law is not the only protection.

John

John

I agree, John. There are many who unabashedly condone and/or commit theft of this kind and later wonder why their applications to the PEA and other groups are rejected without comment. Shunning is a common practice in this business. If they choose not to play by our rules and ethics, they shouldn't be surprised when we refuse to accept them as peers. We have VERY long memories, so they burn bridges at their own peril.

Of course you can buy me a drink at MindVention! (ANYONE CAN - I DON'T SAY NO!) I'd enjoy discussing this area of the law with you in more depth.

Best,

Bob

Mindvention is starting to sound like a good booze up..

Always! The main reason I go is to party with friends. (I understand, though, that they also have some lectures and shows.)

A couple of points:

1. Wasn't the Ferrari design dreamt up in someone's head? The very shape, design and component parts that make it the desirable thing that it is? The person who did that gets paid a lot! You may have noticed that a Ferrari costs more than the materials and work hours that went into it's manufacture. That money pays the designers for their extremely valuable thoughts. - Yet someone is trying to say that thoughts when made tangible have no value and should be free? Ferrari don't think so! And they will lose the person who dreams up the next model if they try and implement that way of thinking and he/she will go to somewhere where they do get paid.

2. The BBC is a PAID FOR organisation, not a free one! You pay for it via a TV licence (or don't you have one of those either? - Many have gone to prison for not having one and so The BBC think that you should be paying to view their programmes, that for sure!) - Currently £145.50 a year, so not free in any sense of the word.

Very nice discussion, a lot of deep ideas from both sides.
I just want to add that, regardless of the legal and moral aspects, it is very unlikely that piracy will decrease over time, on the contrary, it will probably become worst and worst. So, is there a real solution? Invoking ethic won't probably work... Maybe the only viable solution is to change the way how magic, and especially mentalism products are sold. How? No idea! But remember that even the music industry with all their money and their influence on the politics could not fight back piracy and the only way they found was to change their way to sell products (i.e. much more cheaper, extremely fast and easy access, possibility to buy even very old things that before were available mainly on piracy websites, etc.). The same solution of course is not applicable to magic, but I think a change is needed anyway.

Related to piracy.... which ties into this IMHO... is the so called creators of ebooks galore that just rape the golden oldies without credit, usually motivated more for wanted glory and "lookee at me" and churn them out so fast... giving away many secrets that were not theirs as well... which then because they are being tossed out so quick into the market without consideration of price or protection or limited editions, are even easier for the pirates to just copy and send around.

If people want piracy to stop, its more than just the P2P and sharing... to me... as some mentioned... they are just collectors who collect for the sake of collecting, having file upon file that they really likely won't even read.... the real bigger evil are those who take the ideas (and likely they might have been stolen ideas from someone else without credit) and start making crap that ends up exposing methods as well.

Yet being a magic/mentalism/mystery "addict" that has learned to curve most of his buying on impulse - many in our community just like buying for the lastest blurb that promises the latest miracle. I think again now that I reflect, another evil angle is the promise of these one-shot highly priced documents that often are crap that make people want vengeance and get things for free... NB: I am not for that and two wrongs do not make a right... but by gosh, the "you can't get your money back as we sold you a secret" is enraging when you find you bought a secret you already have, and the person made it worse of a presentation with a lesser method... and uncredited of course... but you live and learn and there are some creators I will never buy from ever.

Also - SHARING usually means the parties are aware and consenting to the sharing... it isn't sharing when someone copies a document without persmission and loads it up into cyberspace.

Cut and Paste world.... Cut and Paste Copyrights.... Cut and Paste....

So, I just want to say it is ethically wrong to make copies of ebooks.... also, those who are the creators of real magic/mystery... they need to ask themselves why they share the way they do... loose lips sink ships.

The greatest danger is dingdongs getting too much material without appreciating the value to it and thus they run off doing youtube videos that expose the methods.... for the public!!!

People can make mistakes, and heck, I am no angel - the secret to really being sorry is the next time the situation arises if you do the same behaviour as before or you actually have changed.

Aside: Academics, business and similar fields are all plagued by this e-world of cut and paste... the change required is more a systemic world ethics and moral issue... and we know how well that goes even with copyright issues before the cyberworld got rolling.... just go offshore and do what you want... offshore has been expanded due to cyberspace.

There is one solution I can think of.... PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

When I orginally started this thread I mentioned that I have received offers to "trade" effects via pm and normally from someone I am not familiar with. I started the thread since giving some people the benefit of the doubt thought maybe they did not know it was wrong. However, it has occured to me that if someone did not think it was wrong, why pm me? why not post a thread? My hunch is that anyone who initiates such an "offer" knows on some level that it is not right.