So you figured out the method...

[Steerpike]

So you say you figured out somebody else's method, and now you can't wait to tell everyone online all about it.

Methods are simultaneously the most coveted and most worthless part of magic. Magicians have stolen them, attacked their peers over them, and other less-than-admirable things. And over what?

Harry Kellar was America's most popular magician in the Victorian age. But he wasn't a very ethical man. His famous levitation was actually stolen from the Maskelynes in England. He walked up on stage during the middle of one of their performances, saw the apparatus for himself, and then left the building.

Believe me when I say that the only people impressed by your reverse engineering are you, your cat, and the YouTube exposure monkeys. Great company, isn't it?

Now if you're not impressing anybody, what exactly have you gained? You basically took somebody else's work without doing anything to earn it. You didn't gain their confidence and learn it at their personal instruction. You didn't buy any teaching materials. You didn't invent your own method, you reverse engineered the performance video until you became convinced you figured it out.

So you have no respect, you're not making any decent friends, and you now have an effect that may or may not have the correct method and which you must refine yourself rather than having the advantage of the creator's hard-earned wisdom in presentation of this particular effect.

Still think reverse-engineering and figuring out other people's work is worth it?

 

[Sam Hardy]

I think this is a great post, especially after Fallen's release - this should be directed to all the people who "figured it out".

 

[Sean_Raf]

<Everything he said>

THANK YOU!

Here, have my ASCII heart: <3

- Sean

 

[clllllust]

Brilliant,

I cannot agree more if I tried. Well put Steerpike.

-RA69

 

[jimbowmanjr]

Preach on brother!

*throws a $20 into the collection plate*

 

[CDarklock]

This is a great post. I don't entirely agree with it, but it's a great post.

Now if you're not impressing anybody, what exactly have you gained?

A trick. And I don't have to pay for it. I don't even have to credit the person whose performance I reverse-engineered, because it's not his trick anymore. It's mine. Indeed, I shouldn't say it's his trick at all, because I don't really know.

I do agree that if you watch a video, come up with a plausible idea of how you could do it, and go explain it on YouTube as how to do that other guy's trick... you suck. But there are ways to ethically reverse-engineer other people's tricks.

For example, I've watched Reza's "Switch Blade" trick over and over, and now I'm convinced I know how it's done. I'm pretty sure that I could do it myself, given enough practice with the sleights involved (which I won't divulge; I'll explain why later).

That doesn't mean Reza isn't an awesome magician. Even though I'm not fooled by Reza's sleights, I know the difficulty of those sleights, and he's doing a great job of them. Not to mention that I am still sort of fooled, because I didn't watch the video ONCE and see immediately what he was doing - I had to watch it over and over to figure out how he did it.

Or maybe not.

Maybe Reza doesn't do it the way I think he does it. Maybe he does something different. Maybe I'm simply small-minded, and can't conceive of the method he actually uses. I certainly had two or three theories which - upon review of the video - turned out to be completely wrong, because he simply couldn't have done it that way given his presentation. (I hypothesised at one point that he had artfully concealed the card inside the knife while he was removing it from his pocket. Um... no. That's definitely not it.)

The only thing I know is that I have an idea for how I could do that trick. I don't know it's what Reza uses; I don't even know if my method works until I can perform it in front of other people with confidence. And even then, it's not his trick. It's something I made up myself.

Now, here, we have the dilemma. Since I made up this trick myself, I can explain it to anyone I want. But I can't say it's the other guy's trick, because I don't know that. There's also an ethical issue about to whom I should explain any effect at all. And then there's the moral issue of whether explaining my version of the trick reduces the value in someone else's version of the same trick. If I explain my version for free, while Reza is selling his version as a source of income, then my version effectively costs him money. The same is true if I simply sell mine a little cheaper.

(To digress slightly: I don't blame the consumer for buying the cheaper trick in any circumstance. I only blame the marketer of the knockoff; ethically, he shouldn't be marketing it. But since he is, the consumer should face no ethical dilemma in choosing which to buy. The consumer faces an economic dilemma of wanting to make the most valuable purchase, and a moral dilemma of wanting to support ethical behavior over unethical behavior. But in the end, it is the producer and marketer of the knockoff who is to blame for any loss of income, not the consumer.)

To my mind, there's only one answer to that dilemma: before I explain "my" trick to anyone, I must materially alter the effect. If my trick looks like someone else's trick, and I know about it, I have no right to explain mine unless I can get his permission. It must appear to be an entirely different trick.

So if I were ever to explain this trick, it wouldn't look like this trick anymore. It would look like something else, and in altering the trick to look different, it's likely (and preferable!) that the method would no longer work for performing Reza's version. In that case, I could and probably should say that I got the idea from Switch Blade - but that's all I can legitimately say. It might actually be better to leave out the trick name, and just say I got the idea from a performance by Reza.

Face it, we're magicians because we like magic. We watch other people's performances because we enjoy them. And if you're in the field, you simply can't help trying to figure out how it's done... so it would kind of suck if you couldn't do anything with that. You just have to be sensitive to (and respectful of) the rest of the community.

 

[Steerpike]

Face it, we're magicians because we like magic. We watch other people's performances because we enjoy them. And if you're in the field, you simply can't help trying to figure out how it's done... so it would kind of suck if you couldn't do anything with that. You just have to be sensitive to (and respectful of) the rest of the community.

True. We can't be faulted for having a mind. But that mind shouldn't be used for the sake of just taking.

Sean Fields heard that Morgan Strebler had an effect to turn bottled water into mouthwash. Rather than wait for it to be marketed, Sean made up his own method. I don't own Taste Conditions, but Sean has stated that he did eventually learn how Morgan did it, and Taste-icular and Taste Conditions are entirely different in method.

So where does that leave people who reverse engineer just because they're cheap?

 

[CDarklock]

So where does that leave people who reverse engineer just because they're cheap?

In my opinion, it leaves them unable to ethically market or expose their tricks.

I don't fault people for being cheap. I've been homeless, and I worked my way to where I am today through hard work and persistence; I know what it's like to be pretty much everywhere between "on the street" and "top 2% income bracket". (I also know what it's like to lose that top 2% position through sheer pigheaded ignorance.) So if you honestly can't find $30 to buy a trick, I've been there, and anything you can legally do to get that trick for free is fine with me. I won't even complain too much about some of the illegal ways you can get it, although I still don't approve.

But there's a big difference between "I don't have the money" and "I don't want to spend the money". If you "can't afford" a certain trick, but you can afford a sealed deck of Jerry's Nuggets on eBay, I start to frown on a lot of technically-legal ways to get hold of that trick... and I see no excuse for any of the illegal ones.

 

[Steerpike]

But there's a big difference between "I don't have the money" and "I don't want to spend the money". If you "can't afford" a certain trick, but you can afford a sealed deck of Jerry's Nuggets on eBay, I start to frown on a lot of technically-legal ways to get hold of that trick... and I see no excuse for any of the illegal ones.

That's more or less what I was getting at. There's a huge difference between being broke and being cheap in my mind.

 

[Austin Fields]

So here is how I see it :

People steal because they can, they want to be a rebel and because magic is an art of secrets, they can be "cool" by learning how to do things that other people don't know how to do.

Thats kind of the psychology behind it. It does go deeper but thats the surface.

Now the thing with stealing is that it's a nasty thing to do, especially if you call yourself a magician and yet steal from your own kind.

The reason I've stayed away from posting in these forums and almost distancing myself from most of the magic community is because of the way Criss Angel and David Blaine are literally burdening us with these kiddies that think magic is "cool" and you're "popular" if you can do magic. And for the most part that is true. So we see these kids not want to spend money on magic because they're not serious about it. They want to be popular, but not for too high a price.

So all the material that I've created recently, even if it's a full blown miracle will stay exclusive to me and maybe my magician friends until all these nuisances are removed.

The run down - Overly obnoxious kids are the ones who are putting holes in magic because everyone wants to be the next Criss Angel or David Blaine, until this hype is over, it will die out as one of the "cool" things to do and become more tight knit. This problem wont stop until the hype dies down, people will steal because they want to learn magic and they don't care about ethics or originality, creating their own ideas is a waste of time if they can download stuff for free, because what do they care?

~Beans

 

[CDarklock]

People steal because they can

It's a little more complex than that. Certainly people wouldn't steal if they couldn't, but this is sort of like saying people walk because they have legs. There's usually this additional motive of going somewhere, you know?

Theft accomplishes a purpose. People do it, not because it's an option, but because it's the most attractive option. If you have no hope of ever earning a decent living in the honest workforce (for whatever reason), but you can lie, cheat, and steal your way to a better lifestyle than any job you can get would provide... why would you bother with the job? The worst that can happen is you go to jail, and they have cable.

Criss Angel and David Blaine are literally burdening us with these kiddies that think magic is "cool" and you're "popular" if you can do magic.

But scattered through that crowd, you will still find the next generation of magicians. How do we identify them? How do we make sure that next generation gets appropriate instruction, a good ethical foundation, and the right encouragement to keep the art alive?

 

[NickSkye]

but you have to spend the money, and if you do see how its done, practice it in a mirror or some friends, then why buy the dvd

 

[Sergey]

I just became fond of the art so much that as a magician, if I am fooled I won't try to figure out the method, I'll leave the feeling of magic, because it's so much more satisfying then the feeling of a trick.

 

[Steerpike]

but you have to spend the money, and if you do see how its done, practice it in a mirror or some friends, then why buy the dvd

Respect, ethics, morality...

You know, grown up stuff.

 

[zurdo2000]

Respect, ethics, morality...

You know, grown up stuff.

Your comments have great sense, but imagine if he was buying everything what goes out to the market only for respecting the creator of the trick.

Respect does not mean to spend money.

Many tricks are so easy to figure that it would not have sense of buying them

Often it is not necessary to buy to learn something new
give us the privilege of using our neurons

 

[Sergey]

If you figured it out, I think you have the right to use it, but not teach it or anything of that sort, plus you don't have to buy everything coming out, just buy the effects you'll use.

 

[Steerpike]

Respect does not mean to spend money.

No it doesn't. But money is only part of it.

In regards to money, putting effects on the market is a stream of income for the creators. I freely admit that I download music, but I buy the albums (and merchandise) when I can afford them because I like what I hear and think the musicians deserve my money. They earned it.

On a deeper level, buying the instructional materials even after you figured out the method shows that you have a certain level of respect for the creator. You think you know how it's done, but you still want to hear it from the horse's mouth and you want to hear their experiences in performing the effect and what sort of presentation goes into making it work.

The funny thing is that a friend of mine is a highly respected mentalist. He's put several of his effects in print, but says the main reason he does that is so that on the chance that some brat decides he's figured out the method and then performs it like a monkey trying to screw a football because he doesn't understand showmanship, he can just point to the book and say, "My effect. I did it first, and I obviously did it better than you." It's protection, in other words.

Many tricks are so easy to figure that it would not have sense of buying them

If I was naive enough to believe that just knowing methods makes you a magician, I might buy that.

Often it is not necessary to buy to learn something new
give us the privilege of using our neurons

I don't fault people for using their own minds. Trouble is, they often don't.

 

[zurdo2000]

What you want to say is that only the rich persons will be able to be magicians and the poor without money will remain in the attempt of being magicians .

 

[Steerpike]

What you want to say is that only the rich persons will be able to be magicians and the poor without money will remain in the attempt of being magicians .

Don't put words in my mouth. That's not what I said and you know it. I already pointed out that there's a difference between being broke and being cheap.

If you truly do not have the means to buy anything, I won't fault you for taking a little under the table. But if you do have the means to buy it, and you don't because you'd rather look up YouTube exposure videos and reverse engineer demos because it's convenient for you, then you're a cheapskate with no integrity.

I'll give you credit, it takes some balls to level an accusation like that at me. But being ballsy isn't much good unless you're right.

 

[Sergey]

What you want to say is that only the rich persons will be able to be magicians and the poor without money will remain in the attempt of being magicians .

Magic isn't a cheap craft.