We all learn tricks through a lot of different means...
- Bought DVD/books/gimmicks/props
- Taught / passed on by someone else
- Created your own trick/sleight/gimmick

Once you learned, practice & master the tricks, you can amaze people with them. Right?

But what if you know a trick through observation? You watch a demo video over & over again until you know the secret or at least you know as much as you know.....do you have the right to perform it after that? Since you never paid for it or officially taught by the creator...

Even though you don't claim it as your own but it still belongs to other people who put up a lot of time & effort to create it and then sell it. And what about other people who're not so analytical and paid good money to learn it? Doesn't this do them wrong?

Eg.: After watching the demo video of the Revolution coin vanish a few times, I figured out the secret, I think, since I tried it in front of the mirror and it appears to be working. But can I show it to an audience? Am I doing justice to those who paid for it if I do?

And what of those who got it through 'other' (read 'illegal') means?

Any comments, guys?
:wacko:

The thing is you think you know how it is done, but it may or may not be the same method. And you won't know unless you buy the trick (or if someone else tells you how its done).
If I were put in this position, if I really want to perform the trick, I feel the ethical thing to do is I'd buy it anyway (the book/DVD/gimmick).That way, I'd learn the trick properly (with all the subtleties the creator has researched, learn the history and crediting of the effect). In my opinion. a trick is so much more than the method.


My 2 cents.

I have to agree with Jeff Gan there ... I'ed rather stay ethical and get the original DVD, etc that gives you a permission to perform it to others, this is a principle of magic many magicians usually over-look and think they are not doing anything wrong, but they are not doing the right thing.

Stay ethical, and other magicians will respect you, not matter how skilled you are and how good you are in magic, so long as you don't be ethical and only download or watch it on some site that teaches free tricks, no magician will respect you, that is just my thinking behind all this.

Oh by the way, I'm a Naruto fan too, in case you don't know, Naruto Shippudden (Hurricane Chronicles) is airing in Japan this Thursday, you can watch it on youtube, it is a timeskip of 2 and a half years and all the Rookie Nine have changed clothes and are more skilled and look more matured.

- Jarrett

The act of buying the original DVD, Book or Prop comes together with the performance rights, in most cases. BUT you DO NOT have the rights to teach that effect/trick to anyone. Not even sharing it to a close magician friend.

Ethics in magic will get you very far in the performing art of magic.

I think its better to buy the DVD/books/gimmicks/props because even if you find out how to do it,maybe you won't do it as good as if you were buying the DVD/books/gimmicks/props because you may miss the important detail of the trick.