Teller wins suit against thief

baguette

Elite Member
Mar 28, 2013
119
1
I have differing thoughts on this event.

One hand, the belgian guys had "stolen" the presentation and patter. He was also selling it.

On the other hand however, if the method differed, i don't think there should be a problem. Here, take a billet peek. There are many different variations, yet they all look the same. Is this a reason to sue someone?

i'd like to hear your thoughts
 
Apr 17, 2013
885
4
This was an original Teller effect. Tell asked the guy to stop selling it. The scumbag kept selling it knowing you can't copyright a method. Well this time the scumbag lost.

As for different methods. This is getting into a grey area. It would have to be a marked improvement over the original. Putting out tiny Plunger with out plunger or pen is not a marked improvement.

There are people ripping off and selling original effects as their own. There was this one guy who would do lecture tours non-stop Claimed to have invented more things than Marlo (who liked to claim everything as well) One day he was doing a demo in the lecture of "his" trick. turns out the guy who really invented it was a member of the ring. It didn't go over so well, but a couple of years later we see this same guy still selling it as his own. So the guy who really invented it started giving it away for free at conventions where this guy would lecture. He would send it to Rings where this guy was booked.

Even on this very forum people claim something is original and want to sell it on the wire even though we can show it's not. They said since they didn't know they should get credit. Sorry no, no you don't. I just went through something like this last month. Something I had been doing for 20 years, turned out someone had published it a year after I came up with it. I'm sure this guy had been doing it long before he put it in Genii in 1996. So sure even though I can show I was doing it before he first published it wouldn't be right for me to go to market with it. All it took was one email to a guy who sent me a copy of the magazine where it was first published.

So if it is close enough to something else, don't sell it or at least show it to the original creator and see if it is okay. chances are he either thought of it and it weakened the effect or it's still too close to their own work.
 

baguette

Elite Member
Mar 28, 2013
119
1
So if it is close enough to something else, don't sell it or at least show it to the original creator and see if it is okay. chances are he either thought of it and it weakened the effect or it's still too close to their own work.

Truer words have never been spoken
 
Jul 13, 2009
1,372
0
33
From what I understand the illusion is protected because it was submitted as a play and is protected under copyright law as stated in the article.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Apr 17, 2013
885
4
From what I understand the illusion is protected because it was submitted as a play and is protected under copyright law.

The judge said the method is not the copyright issue. It was the choreography and the presentation. Which to me seems odd you can protect every part of your act save for the method. So had the guy just sold the method and not the whole package I think the case would have gone differently.
 

Josh Burch

Elite Member
Aug 11, 2011
2,966
1,101
Utah
The judge said the method is not the copyright issue. It was the choreography and the presentation. Which to me seems odd you can protect every part of your act save for the method. So had the guy just sold the method and not the whole package I think the case would have gone differently.

Yeah, as long as his presentation was significantly different he could have used the same method and got away with it. From what I understand.
 
Apr 17, 2013
885
4
Legally yes but it is an ethics issue at that point. Yes there are some out there who still have ethics in magics.

[video=youtube;vNk9yQjoMHs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNk9yQjoMHs#t=89[/video]
 
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