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Magic Civil War: Calen Morelli vs. Rick Lax vs. Ellusionist?

Who is in the wrong here?

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TylerScottIllusionist

TylerScottIllusionist

Aug 9, 2015
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This was the massive project that I was talking about for a recent event in the magic world. This topic has been building for a while now and sort of reached an interesting feud last week between Calen Morelli and Rick Lax. I'm not the proper authority on this so I would love to hear your guys' thoughts in the comments. I'm just the guy that did a lot of internet sleuthing and am very passionate about a healthy and positive magic community.

 
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I watched the video and I pretty much agree with you.
I think Rick Lax is leaning towards a kind of "magic" directed just for the laypeople of the social media. He is aiming for the views, the likes and he's not trying to create something more elaborate that would improve the art of magic.
And I respect that aim, I don't like his videos but other people do and that's ok. What I don't like is his attitude towards the others: calling out ellusionist was very childish while the members of the team, especially Brad, handled this professionally and in a more mature way. And it looks like (but I'm not sure about it) that he is creating some fans who are following his steps trying to support him by any means.
I have a few questions still remaining:
is copying his videos legally wrong?
Also his videos are not really original. Did the "theft" videos really copy every single word he said?
Did Justin Flom, Bizzaro, Kyle Marlett say anything about this?

PS. A suggestion for the video: Next time record it horizontally.
 
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antoferra said:
I watched the video and I pretty much agree with you.
I think Rick Lax is leaning towards a kind of "magic" directed just for the laypeople of the social media. He is aiming for the views, the likes and he's not trying to create something more elaborate that would improve the art of magic.
And I respect that aim, I don't like his videos but other people do and that's ok. What I don't like is his attitude towards the others: calling out ellusionist was very childish while the members of the team, especially Brad, handled this professionally and in a more mature way. And it looks like (but I'm not sure about it) that he is creating some fans who are following his steps trying to support him by any means.
I have a few questions still remaining:
is copying his videos legally wrong?
Also his videos are not really original. Did the "theft" videos really copy every single word he said?
Did Justin Flom, Bizzaro, Kyle Marlett say anything about this?

PS. A suggestion for the video: Next time record it horizontally.
Click to expand...
I agree with everything you just said. While Rick Lax's videos are not my cup of tea, I do appreciate how he is able to entertain a mass audience that would have no prior interest in viewing magic. With that being said he is way out of line with how he is handling his influence and fame. I'll admit that I was originally upset with Calen's Instagram post calling out Rick Lax (this was prior to me doing research) because I felt like he was polarizing and alienating some of his fanbase. Then I did some research on Rick Lax's personal Facebook and I ended up sympathizing with Calen more. But yes, Ellusionist handled this very professionally and I really can't fault them here. I thought it was odd that they put up Lasse Burholt's video but I truly believe they had no ill will towards Rick Lax and his popularity.

To answer a few of your questions, copying videos is such a tricky subject since it's not black and white. You have people on Facebook like SoFlo that will steal an entire video, give no credit to the original creator, and make a profit off it and it is still perfectly legal for him to do so under a creative commons clause. What Lasse Burholt did was to even less of a degree than that, he just simply copied the idea from Rick Lax's video and made his own. This is legal since Lax did not copyright the script to it as far as I know. I honestly have no idea how he was able to get Lasse Burholt in trouble. His video is still up on YouTube but the suprising thing to me was his video only has 225,000 views not 200,000,000 as Lax stated and he he only has 415 subscribers. Not defending what Lasse did here but he really was not affecting Rick Lax's popularity at all and was more of a waste of time for Lax to even go after him. Plus this was not Lax's creation! This plot and number guessing concept has been done numerous times before Lax even posted the video.

Justin Flom, Bizzaro, and Kyle Marlett have not given a response to this as of yet and I doubt they will. I'm sure they believe what I believe and that this is just a phase in Rick Lax's life as a result of his instant fame and it will blow over soon and everything will go back to normal. In the meantime, they don't want to polarize and alienate themselves from the rest of the industry so they will probably neither lend their support nor condemnation of Lax, Calen, or Ellusionist. They are going to just keep doing what they do best and that is entertaining people.

I sincerely apologize about the video. I attempted to film it horizontally originally but due to not having a tripod and lighting issues, it was very hard for me to rest my phone up against something. When I had found a good spot, my dresser has an elevated edge so a wooden edge took up half of the shot and it looked even worse than had I done it vertically. So I decided to pick the lesser of the two evils and film it vertically so it would get rid of the wooden edge. This is also why it's so hard for me to put live performances up since it's difficult for me to film myself and I need someone else to film for me. Alas, I'm working on it and my future videos should look better. Thanks for the support!
 
First and foremost: Tyler, thank you for posting this. I was in a jam session last week with my buddy, Zombz, and he mentioned something about the feud between Morelli and Lax, but I had no idea what was going on since I no longer use social media (you covered the evils of facebook). It also doesn't effect me so I didn't really care either way but judging from the evidence that you presented, they are both acting like children. Rick, for one, was beating a dead horse by constantly calling out of the E staff (yes, he was calling them out even though he said he wasn't), and getting Burholt banned from Facebook for "stealing" "his" trick. Burholt even credited Rick in his video description. Morelli is a child for attempting to polarize the magic community. It's fine if he doesn't like Ricks videos (or wtv his problem is), but don't tell people that they should only follow him or Rick, that is ridiculous.

For these reasons, I say that they are both in the wrong. Rick, for being an overall jerk about the whole situation. And Morelli for his polarizing statement.
 
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DominusDolorum said:
First and foremost: Tyler, thank you for posting this. I was in a jam session last week with my buddy, Zombz, and he mentioned something about the feud between Morelli and Lax, but I had no idea what was going on since I no longer use social media (you covered the evils of facebook). It also doesn't effect me so I didn't really care either way but judging from the evidence that you presented, they are both acting like children. Rick, for one, was beating a dead horse by constantly calling out of the E staff (yes, he was calling them out even though he said he wasn't), and getting Burholt banned from Facebook for "stealing" "his" trick. Burholt even credited Rick in his video description. Morelli is a child for attempting to polarize the magic community. It's fine if he doesn't like Ricks videos (or wtv his problem is), but don't tell people that they should only follow him or Rick, that is ridiculous.

For these reasons, I say that they are both in the wrong. Rick, for being an overall jerk about the whole situation. And Morelli for his polarizing statement.
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No problem! It was a pretty big undertaking but I think I gathered most of the relevant data to this topic. I don't think Morelli or Lax realize the kind of influence they have on people just yet.

I do have a lot of respect for both creators. I'm hoping that this will blow over soon and everything will go back to normal and we can focus on the true evil: Facebook, SoFlo, fake "social experiments", and people revealing other people's creations. If there is one thing that is killing/hurting the magic industry it is that.
 
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TylerScottIllusionist said:
No problem! It was a pretty big undertaking but I think I gathered most of the relevant data to this topic. I don't think Morelli or Lax realize the kind of influence they have on people just yet.

I do have a lot of respect for both creators. I'm hoping that this will blow over soon and everything will go back to normal and we can focus on the true evil: Facebook, SoFlo, fake "social experiments", and people revealing other people's creations. If there is one thing that is killing/hurting the magic industry it is that.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry about it so much. Just continue doing your magic and let the children bicker. If their conflict was more like The Prestige, then I'd be a little more interested to see where it was going :P
 
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DominusDolorum said:
I wouldn't worry about it so much. Just continue doing your magic and let the children bicker. If their conflict was more like The Prestige, then I'd be a little more interested to see where it was going :p
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Yeah, I thought one of them was pro-registration and the other wasn't and here was some epic battle about it.

What ACTUALLY happened was far below my expectations

=runs=
 
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Gabriel Z. said:
For those of you wondering I am the only vote so far for "Tyler for even talking about such a stupid topic". :D
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Haha hey that's fair enough! I'm never opposed to being held up for criticism.

With that being said, I was recently contacted by Ellusionist and they had said that was the only incident they had encountered with Rick Lax and as of yet nothing else has happened. Calen's post has been taken down and Rick Lax has been doing what he normally does as well as releasing an effect that looks absolutely killer with Justin Flom! Say what you will about the guy but he is a creative beast especially when he teams up with Justin Flom. I'm thinking I may put Tornado in with my Angle Z and Surge routine.
 
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Brett Hurley said:
I will give Rick Lax that he does create a lot of stuff, and he knows how to make a good video that is articulate. My only question is how much of his stuff is actually useful and practical.
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I've only ever bought one thing from him(Postal code), and I think it's a good trick. Binary code is good, and practical. Re-cord was simple to figure out, and impractical to perform in my opinion. I don't know much besides that.
 
Brett Hurley said:
I will give Rick Lax that he does create a lot of stuff, and he knows how to make a good video that is articulate. My only question is how much of his stuff is actually useful and practical.
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There are a few of Rick Lax's creations that I quite enjoy which are Tornado (his most recent release and probably his best), Past Present Future, and Binary Code. I may even end up giving Bit Coin a shot in replacement of my Superman Coin Bend.
 
To be perfectly honest, both sides of this feud are childish. It takes two sides to play tug of war and unless one side drops the rope, it will keep going. It does not matter who started it, who is right or wrong. Unless one person decides to be the more mature person and let bygones be bygones, neither side will be happy. Rick Lax has some pretty great unique takes on tricks that are included for free with some tricks on penguin. Calen Morelli is a brilliant and creative performer. I get there are sometimes rivalry in magic and life, I just think people should try to keep things civil.
 
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I think that Calen definitely was just using this as an opportunity to try to hurt Rick Lax, and it wasn't very professional. Although, I definitely don't agree with the way Rick responded with all of those responses, especially to Brad, Peter, etc. He was being rather rude. I love both magician's effects, as well as what they have posted/done in magic. I agree with Calen, I dislike Rick's videos, although I think he just went on about it in a very unprofessional way. As for Rick I think he just overreacted to everybody's responses and also those "ripoff videos."
 
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TylerScottIllusionist said:
This was the massive project that I was talking about for a recent event in the magic world. This topic has been building for a while now and sort of reached an interesting feud last week between Calen Morelli and Rick Lax. I'm not the proper authority on this so I would love to hear your guys' thoughts in the comments. I'm just the guy that did a lot of internet sleuthing and am very passionate about a healthy and positive magic community.

Click to expand...
Hey, is it ok if you upload the video fully. I don't have a YouTube account unfortunately and I really want to see it!
 
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