This is where you are branching off into two different topics completely. Professionalism is NOT art. The art of making money maybe, but professionalism does not lead to art, or vise versa. Im talking about the art, not about the money.
Sure you have valid points there, but wouldnt a better way be just showing it to few rather than to market it to the "community"? Is magic really all come down to making money?
I respect and agree with what you are saying, i just despise the very idea of charging other magicians for magic. This is by far the only "art form" that makes money off fellow "artists".
Yeah, like that Dai Vernon guy. How dare he release his material for money? And Theory11, what horrible tools. They should all be shot for releasing material to magicians. Sorry, that comes off as more sarcastic than I intend; I don't mean to be sarcastic towards you, and I don't mean any disrespect towards you, but I hope you can see my point here. I can see where you're coming from. But I just think that releasing something for money doesn't make people bad guys, and I don't see anything wrong with it.
If you create something and are proud of it, sure, you might share it with some close friends. But why not release it to make some money too? Just because one is releasing something for money, doesn't mean that the art has suddenly become about money - that for one would be ignoring the great professional career of Paul as a performer. Releasing something for money doesn't change that. In any case, what's wrong with wanting to make money? Business pervades every facet of life in some way. I think the important question is more, whether this routine is actually worth the money, which I can't say for sure, but judging from Paul's previous releases, I would be highly confident in saying yes anyway.
Every magician buys another's material at some point, and I would venture to say that surely you have too?
Another question: I don't know if you've ever been to an acting class or a painting class? What is that but artists charging money to teach other artists?
@jtmorris: On the point of boredom: Yes, I'd imagine that that would be one of the big pitfalls with creating a routine such as this. What I will simply say is this: I trust that Paul will have worked on this routine enough to make it interesting and bypass that issue. I certainly think that he is a comprehensive enough of a mentalist and performer in general to cover such areas. If I myself were to, theoretically, buy the effect and perform it, then I too would have to make sure that in performing it myself, that this was not an issue due to the way I perform. But I would imagine that the construction of the effect would be solid enough to have addressed that. In the end, I can't say for certain - it is a possibility, but I would simply add that it's very, very unlikely that this would be a problem allowed to remain unaddressed by Paul.
As far as similar effects go, this is true. In answer, I will simply make one comparison. Derren Brown uses effects from Annemann. So technically, you could buy his effect for the routine description in Annemann for very cheap. So what's the difference between the effect in Annemann and the routine we see Derren performing? Professional routining. Timing. Presentation. Variation. Scripting. etc. The list goes on. This, I think, is the mark of a those performers who are not only good but incredible, the top of their field, and this ultimately is what you're paying for - not the method so much as the years of manifestation of Paul's creative vision and development of this effect. If you've ever seen Eric Mead's performance on Fora TV, his construction of his routine is absolutely amazing, though it only contains two effects. Yet it is amongst the best-contructed routines I've ever seen. I look at that and realise how much further I have to go as a magician, and at the moment, I can only express ridiculous amazement at how much creative vision, intelligence and work it would've taken to have put that together - something I can't even begin to fathom, let alone know where to start.
