Me too.

There are two mindsets at work here, two attitudes that keep the illegal market affloat.

1. I want to know the secrets that you have spent 30 years learning, but I don't want to put the work in myself or pay for them.
2. I want to make money by selling secrets on the internet, but I don't have any of my own, so I'll steal other peoples.


It is an ongoing problem that will only get worse I'm afraid. Just ask Michael Murray, he's been chasing one scumbag for two years.

The problem is what will happen, and it's already started, is that many people who have brilliant ideas, and I know a few, will simply refuse to publish them and will only share or even sell to people they know, but then that is how it used to be, you had to earn your spurs before anybody would share anything with you, it's what kept secrets secret.

So here's my mindset as someone who over the past 17 years has subsidized his performance income by releasing books and video's.

Work your butt off for 35 years practicing, performing and refining ideas. Publish them for sale to the magic and mentalism fraternity to make some extra cash and share what you've learned.

But to avoid stress, frustration and anger that lead to illness both physical and psychological, be aware that whatever you release whether it be a digital product or physical effect, will on average appear on various rip off sites from China to Europe within 14 days.

Accept the fact that your most loyal friends, followers and clients will buy direct from you to support your work, accept that the bulk of your sales will come within the first 14 days and will dwindle as illegal copies are uploaded all over the great digital nowhere.

Sales will then tick over slowly coming from those honest people who add your products to their wish list and buy direct from you or an official dealer you work with when they have the money to buy a legit copy.

By looking at it that way (advice given to me by Paul Voodini years ago) I've accepted that chasing scumbags is a waste of my time and effort, because companies like Scribd, ebay, paypal, the list goes on, really don't care as long as they are making their cut.

Sad but true.

Quote
[Please check regularly if you are becoming the type of magician Jerry Seinfeld jokes about. (This applies to mentalists as well.)]
Quote

Link please?

I have far less experience than you guys, so, please take my thoughts with a pinch of salt. Also, I discovered the illegal market only recently.

I think there can be two ways to reduce this illegal markets:

1. Give your buyers something extra which they cannot get through the illegal market.
Like a facebook group which gives exclusive access to the creator to ask questions and know about different variations and from other members of the group. It is something similar to why people prefer to go to theaters to watch a movie than stream it at home.

2. Maybe pricing the trick for lesser amount helps.
I think people go towards the illegal market because they get a download of 45-50$ at just 4-5$. This price difference serves as an attraction for potential buyers to step in illegal market.

Also, maybe something like Netflix of magic with subscription service can fix this situation. Today piracy in movies is reduced because watching movie has just become easier (just a click away) through Prime Video and Netflix. So if we can have something similar then buyers won't need to go through the hassle of payments for every trick.

Yes..Yes..movies example is not completely adequate because there is not a large volume of people in magic comparing to movie viewers. BUT same is the case with many other educational websites - they are able to manage it maybe we will too.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jrRdq2pCjAM

Thanks UM

Here's a similar Seinfeld quote:

https://quotefancy.com/quote/976711/Jerr......t-s-back

OK taken with a pinch of salt and I accept you don't have as much experience so I'll try to explain my thoughts..

Your suggestions Option 1. This is already common practice but it doesn't stop the thieves who are trying to make a buck from selling other peoples work, they really aren't interested in access to a private facebook group to discuss the book they've scanned and uploaded illegally.



Option 2. Again very much a case of I want to know the secrets that you have spent 30 years learning, but I don't want to put the work in myself or pay for them.

Let me see if I can give you a simple exercise to address that idea.

I'd like you to sit down for the next year or two with all the magic and mentalism books you own, read through them and work out which effects you love and then research the methods the authors of those effects use.

Now after performing those effects for real audiences for lets be generous and say just a year, spend another year or two developing your own handlings and evolving the routines, methods, sleights and props used until you've got something new, something that is unique to you, something that you are proud of and that your audiences love.

Then take that idea on the road and for the next couple of years work it to death to iron out all the wrinkles, find the easiest ways to manufacture the props you require, this may take quite a few prototypes but stick with it.

So after say five or six years if you think you've finally got something that is original and may appeal to other magicians or mentalists, share the idea with a few close friends, it may also be worth sending copies to those performers with a lot of experience who may be able to tell you that after years and years of hard work you've reinvented the wheel but you may be lucky and have a winner on your hands.

Then all you've got to do, is sit down and spend another six months writing the idea up taking the photo's, formatting the text, shooting the promo vids and if you are selling more than just a digital product, in some cases spend a lot of cash finding a manufacturer who can produce the props at the right price.

The next thing to do is upload all the details to your online store, sorry did I forget to mention you'd need to build a website with an online store and system for taking payments, you could pay someone else to do that for you but you'll still need to pay for a host and domain name etc.

Finally all you'll need to do is start a marketing campaign by sending a letter out to all those on the mailing list of clients you've spent the last few years cultivating, sorry also forgot to mention that. Then you'll need to market it via multiple social media channels, answer hundreds of questions about it via email and messenger and ultimately sell it for 4 or 5 dollars while you sit back and watch the cash roll in.

Of course what will actually happen is that when sold for 4 or 5 dollars it will be perceived as something of little or no value, nobody will take the idea seriously and the thieves will steal it anyway and sell it at a dollar a pop.

I hope this explains why I feel your option 2 won't work.

That took me 20 mins to write at a time when I'm supposed to be working on my next book, so I'm leaving this thread here.

Cheers all

Thank you Scott for the detailed reply. I am sorry that I did not think that critically above in my post.
Also my analogy of movies is wrong, because magic as craft takes far more time to develop and returns are lower - hence justifying the pricing associated.
I really like your logical criticisms and gives me broader view of thinking about magic and effort that goes into it.

Thank you for your time and effort you took in explaining a stranger with just 6 posts on the magic Café.

I've said this before: We've now come to a point in time where many, many people think they shouldn't have to pay for certain things. They get to download movies, TV, songs, books, etc, for free or for pennies on the dollar. They come to believe that they should be able to get anything for free. The reverse is not true: Many years ago Facebook put out a statement that they felt any thing put on their site now belonged to them. The uproar started. Suddenly everyone was up in arms that THEIR stuff was being stolen by Facebook. Now they were furious that their cat photos and vacation pictures and funny memes were taken by Facebook. When it's THEIR stuff they feel it is all crooked, but when they download a movie for free, or anything else, they use the rationalization, "Well, these companies make millions and millions of dollars so this is a drop in the bucket of a loss."

I once had an argument with someone who used that same mental process. I said to him, "Then would you mind if I put your ATM code up on a website and allow 100 people to just take a nickel each from your account each month? That would only be $5 dollars a month taken. You wouldn't miss it." He was kind of mad with my analogy.... probably because it hit home.

Greg

Android phone owners in a nutshell

Are there still people on this planet that perform magic AND own an Android?!

So I’ve heard, as crazy as that may seem.

Oh dear, I guess I now know my place.

I do admire you for choosing to challenge yourself, Neil. 😉

Me too Neil.

Never had anything but an android, but then I've never used a phone to perform mentalism either.

Hi

So, there are two of us!

Looks like there are enough people to start Android Anonymous.

All of my Dvds from the New York Coin Magic Seminar are available in China as dirt cheap downloads. All of my Penguin Live and At the Table downloads have been ripped off by China and are selling for dirt cheap. My new book, RUBINSTEIN COIN MAGIC has been ripped off and is available as a cheap pdf on various crap sites. Bottom line is that we can't stop them as long as they are being fed by rotten bottom feeding "magicians" who care nothing about ethics or doing what's right.