Help Us Stop Magic Piracy

Nov 25, 2008
136
0
i remember a time when i was downloading danny garcia's projects on torrents. The download was almost done 74 percent. i woke up in the middle of the night and deleted the whole file and the torrent.
 
Christmas Video Montage: Remember when Theory11 did that video montage that they posted up on the media section? Why not do another one for Christmas with footage of people performing for others, displaying some good old yule time holiday spirit? Set the video to the song Have Your Self a Merry Little Christmas, and post it up around the holiday?
 
Mar 11, 2012
1
0
yeah, people are weird, they admire magic but at the same time they want to know how it works
and when they figure that out they don't like it anymore
 
Apr 29, 2012
7
0
Dallas, TX
I just signed up to respond to this. There are a number of different things here at play, some of which are more important than others. As someone who has eBooks and DVDs of his routines and tricks out there I am about as concerned as the next guy about piracy. Someone republishes my (non-DRM) eBook and I lose money. Simple as that. A few weeks ago I was in a shop in LA and one of the other customers actually asked me, whispering, if I knew that I could get some of the tricks on BitTorrent and that the gaff in one of the boxes was "just a $1 piece of metal". And, yes, I knew that. I bought the DVD anyways, have made my own gaff since, but feel good for supporting the artist.

That's one side of the coin. The other one is the sharing of tricks. And, guys, let's be realistic here. Very few of us would be doing much of any magic if we hadn't had someone share tricks with us. Tricks they learned from someone else, mostly. I remember being taught my first card trick when I was a kid, today I know that that very trick wasn't an invention by the guy who showed it to me but just a simplified version of "the trick that fooled Houdini" (Ambitious Card). And we use it to this day. Some of us are actually making money with it by selling a DVD explaining it for $19. Yet none of the precedents in this trick's genesis, neither Dai Vernon nor the Magic Castle (which executes his estate if I am not mistaken), sees a single cent whenever we perform, teach, or even sell the trick.

So there's the other side - once a trick is taught it's "out there". If you, I, anyone, decides to make money with the trick itself, not its performance, we enter a zone where we know that this is a one-shot deal. No one can unring the bell. I had a few lads at a dinner party once who pressured me to teach them a trick. Any trick. I don't like being pressured but agreed to teach them one thing (the "this, this, that" reverse Hamman count) in exchange for a $50 donation to the party's cause (it was a fundraiser of sorts and I did closeup magic to lube/warm up the patrons). A few weeks later I see that very trick sold for $40 to the "pick up artist" crowd in Austin, TX. By the lads. Hmm, not happy making but so what? The trick is explained on YouTube and in six books on my shelf. The bell has been rung the very first time someone showed it to someone else.

I understand that theory11 needs to make money and I support them in their vengeance going after anyone who torrents or re-publishes the material they sell on this site. But there's a massive difference between mindless rebroadcasting, which is piracy, and passing on tricks between magicians which is the backbone and foundation of our craft.
 
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