Difference between revealing and teaching?

[spoook]

Lets look at the video tape...



Glass houses and all. We agree exposure is bad though.

http://forums.theory11.com/showthread.php?39380-Two-Cards-Monte-By-David-Blaine


You are right I did critque pretty harsh.
I know I was harsh because the user had several "tutorial" videos on his you tube account.
I shouldn't let that influence my feedback, but clearly in this case it did.

My feedback wasn't very productive either.


I should have told him

a) It is unnatural to take a card from the table put it back on the deck, then back to the table.
You need a motivation for putting the card back on the deck it looks unnatural.
If you are doing it to avoid the other sleight more commonly associated with this trick, then you may consider learning the other sleight.

b) The fast switching is unnecessary and only confuses the effect. In fact if you slow down, and make it easy to follow the cards switching places, then the final reveal would be more magical.

You are right, I was a jerk, and I am big enough to admit it.

 

[spoook]

The difference between giving something away for free, and having someone pay though is one of dedication. There's little that people won't take for free but as soon as you put a price tag on it, it becomes something they have to think about. Because in our society money is directly related to time. For every thing we purchase, we have to decide if it's worth the amount of time it would take to acquire that much money. "Do I want to give up an hour and a half of my life so I can have this trick?" Or, "Do I want to give up 33 hours of my life to buy this book?" Etc

Being willing to pay money means you're dedicated enough to give up your time to be able to have it. Since we don't really have the guys behind the counters determining who's got the dedication and who doesn't .. this is the next best thing.

This is a valid point.

So how do we compensate creators who are deceased?
Do we let the magic die when the original copies of a book/dvd cease to exist?
Do we compensate a 3rd party who didn't invent the trick?
How about Erdnase? Who should be compensated for Erdnase?

It is my opinion that desire to practice and preform a trick is more important than money. I think if we are collecting a "payment" it should be that of time spent practicing and preforming an effect. There are always people who have a surplus of funds, but those people may not be worthy.

I do believe it is important to purchase the origional work when possible, you typically have better tips for the method. But you get better feedback from someone watching you do the effect because it is centric to what you are doing.

 

[krab]

This is a valid point.

So how do we compensate creators who are deceased?
Do we let the magic die when the original copies of a book/dvd cease to exist?
Do we compensate a 3rd party who didn't invent the trick?
How about Erdnase? Who should be compensated for Erdnase?

Point one) Thanks to Disney, the copy right will never run out on these books. Meaning the estates of the creators will own the rights to the books and other copyrighted releases. Remember, as of right now you can't copyright the method but you can own the copyright to the printed or video of the effect. I hope Teller wins his lawsuit so magic creators can start to copyright the methods. This is why in the back of the Tom Stone book he went so far as to talk to rights holders for some of the older books.

Point two) Some of these books were put out in small print runs at really high prices to make sure that only those who were working performers or historians would have a copy and to keep them out of the hands of the mildly curious. So no the effects will not die but will be passed down from mentor to student or sold at even higher prices to keep it a exclusive effect.

Honestly, most of my working material is either original from Tarbell or from long out of print books and magazines from the late 1800 to the 1960's I was lucky enough to know a collector who was moving and didn;t want to move his stacks of magazine. I picked eighty years worth of periodicals for about $200.

Point three) Yes if they are the legal copyright holder of the original works.

Point four) If Erdnase gave the publishing rights over to the company who first printed the book then it was their's to do with that they pleased. To sell the rights to whom ever they chose. If the work has fallen into public domain (to be honest i'm not sure if it has or not) then anyone can put their version of the book.

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/

The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. An important wrinkle to understand about public domain material is that, while each work belongs to the public, collections of public domain works may be protected by copyright. If, for example, someone has collected public domain images in a book or on a website, the collection as a whole may be protectible even though individual images are not. You are free to copy and use individual images but copying and distributing the complete collection may infringe what is known as the “collective works” copyright. Collections of public domain material will be protected if the person who created it has used creativity in the choices and organization of the public domain material. This usually involves some unique selection process, for example, a poetry scholar compiling a book

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Erdnase is in the Public Domain I believe. There are legal free copies online.

Dedicated to learning is another way of showing .. well .. dedication. Dedication is the price to me. Whether that means you'll work your job until you have enough money, or scouring the free sources until you develop your methods. It's fine to develop your own techniques from the old sources - that shows the dedication to pour through those sources and bring the performance into modern aesthetics.

But if you're (general you, not you specifically Spoook) teaching someone's effect which is already published then you're violating intellectual rights in my opinion. I don't care if it's just a modern version of a hundred year old effect - if you take someone's method and teach it to someone else you're giving away their material. Don't act like someone who's exposing cups and balls is below you because you would never give away an effect like that. Unless it's to another magician, then it's totally ok.

No it's not.