Invented... or not

[CDarklock]

I have a question. I'd like to know what the community thinks about this.

Let's say you're sitting around, and you come up with an idea for an effect. You play with it a little, and you create a pretty reliable method to achieve it. You practice a while, then go out and perform it for some people. It works great. People love it.

However - knowing that magic is several centuries old - you're simply positive that someone has done this trick before. You know that someone, somewhere, must have done the exact same thing. It's just too simple to have eluded everyone for so long.

What do you call this? You didn't invent it. It's not yours. But... what is it?

 

[kcardum]

dude, someone said this in another thread, but i will say it anyways. do not worry if it has been done before. if you created it, then feel proud about it, sit back and think how you could make it better.

 

[sourboarder]

Where did it come from? As you said, YOU were sitting around, YOU came up with a cool idea for an effect. YOU DIDN'T see it in a video, magazine, in a book, or a post online. YOU were sitting around, YOU created the method, as it goes for me, call it yours until someone corrects you, because maybe its not the same method, and yours is better. But here's the kicker, even if someone did come up with it, that doesn't mean you didn't.

 

[robotsunshine]

It's a common practice to expand upon or improve an existing trick. Say you made your own Triumph. You just call that whatever in the world you want, but technically, that's your version or variation. However, we've got sort of a public domain notion in magic, where if it's old enough and universal enough (an ACR or a double lift), we just name our version and it's our's, with previous credit implied.

If research fails to provide an existing version of what you made, credit yourself. If you ever find another variation that you feel is a direct parent of your own invention, then supply credit. From a semantics viewpoint, however, you'd just say it's your version of whatever it is.

 

[Close-Up Expert]

Here's what I posted in the other thread........

-----------------

I hate when people say they "created" something...with magic being around sooooooooo long, it's damn near impossible to come up with something 100% new and original. And that goes for both the plot and the method.

There are things to change and improve on, no doubt. But very hard to come up with something new. That's why I've stopped with the "created" stuff....I have a few routines that I've adapted from other routines, and have changed to make something pretty different. I'm going to start using Devo's suggestion. "Personal Discoveries"

You didn't create an original piece, but discovered it by yourself. Thus it's your "personal discovery."

Then again...just my thoughts.
Steve

 

[jimbowmanjr]

The patter, presentation, and plot are mine. If I found out where the method was originally contrived I would credit that individual as well where and if necessary. I would research my method and plot to check the originality of it before sharing it with another magician. I have no obligation to do this if I simply intend to perform it for my non-paying and usually entertained spectators.

Are you talking about creating effects you plan to sell or just effects you plan to perform?

I can't remember the last time I performed something and ever mentioned where I learned it or who created it. As far as my spectators are concerned I am the creator as I am the magician. Rather than have some long winded ethics dispute I will toss out the disclaimer: this is my opinion and I do not expect anyone to follow it or abide in my beliefs.

--Jim

 

[Brad Henderson]

If you care about this art, then you will be actively learning everything you can about its history. Sure, people recreate obscure ideas all the time. However, all too often today, people recreate effects which any well read magician would already know about. There is no excuse for that.

The answer is simple: If you have created something which you feel is original, start researching. Spend some time with the books. Talk to magicians who are older and/or more knowledgeable than yourself. And be willing to accept the what they tell you even if it stings.

Creating an idea on your own is always a great thing - even if it's a reinvention. But please, PLEASE, do not rush to sell it on a DVD. If you think it's original, you've done your research, and you want to share it (and get credit) submit it to one of the many magazines in existence (Genii, Magic, MUM, Linking Ring, Antinomy, Penumbra). The editors will let you know if you have something, AND you will start getting your name out there.

Better yet, keep it to yourself, build a performance career for real people with the ideas, then when you are ready to retire, people will be clamoring for your wisdom and shared experiences.

Brad Henderson

 

[CDarklock]

Are you talking about creating effects you plan to sell or just effects you plan to perform?

Effects I plan to teach.

I think it's everybody's job to teach other magicians. I go to a local magic club every month, and I trade tips and tricks with people. So I'm concerned that I might say "I invented this" and then someone might go "Pearl Ozman teaches that on his DVD!" and I'll look like a jerk.

So I want to know what I should say instead. Usually I say something like "I came up with this myself, but I'm sure I'm not the only one" and that just feels lame.

 

[Glenn West]

It's called reinventing the wheel. It happens all the time, as one could imagine.

A similar occurance, but more rare, is simultaneous independent creation. This is where two people come up with the same thing around the same time.

In both situations, it really depends on what you want to do with it. Just including it in your performance repatiore is generally considered acceptable. It is an honest discovery. Now if it was something you watched someone else do, and reverse engineered the method, that is different. That in unethical, of course. Not the actual reverse engineering, but the use of it in your own work is where the ethics come in.

Now, seeing someone else's effect, and that inspiring you to take the idea of the EFFECT and make your own something that is noticeably different, in effect and/or method, this is also generally accepted as being ethically okay, given that you credit the original as inspiration. Also, in this situation, it is best to also purchase the original, or material in which it is explained, not only for the purpose of giving the creator their dues, but also as you may gain very beneficial information that you can use in the creation of your own piece.

Back to the original situation(s) though, if you plan to do more than just perform the effect, and even if you don't, it is best to research it and track down any other creators, or learn the history of said effect.

If you have no luck in finding anything similar, then you should turn to your peers, put it out there, and see what comes back. If you STILL find nothing, then you, more or less, have done your part. But be through, ask around, and research. Just saying you didn't know is not enough.

NOW, if and when you find a similar effect or method, contact the creator. Show them yours and open a report with them. Chances are some mutually beneficial situation will arise.

Similarly, if anyone contacts you and claims they have a similar effect, OR even points you in the direction of someone else who does, show respect and contact this person.

This should all happen long before anything is released. IF things are moving along toward a release, and this type of information comes up, do NOT ignore it. Again, contact those involved and try to reach some kind of resolution. This is exactly what appears to have happened with Digital Dissolve. Generally it is best to have this all resolved before anything is actually sold to the magic public.

Often, if this is all discovered BEFORE anything is sold, respect should dictate allowing the original creator to do what they wish with their product first. For example, if two effects are discovered to be similar, and one was established to have been around first, even if never released, the creator(s) of the "original" should be allowed to release theirs first. At the very least, the release of either should be put on hold until a mutual agreement is reached.

This has been seen before with, I believe, a freezing coin effect, if I am not mistaken.

Of course, if the "original" creator (I use the term original in quotes so as to show it is being used loosely in this kind of simultaneous creation) is fine with it, and things are agreed upon, then go ahead, and release before them.

The best thing in these situations is for everything to be out in the open. If things are done without contacting those who have something similar out there, things can go bad VERY quickly. It is VERY disrespectful, and in my opinion, arrogant, to just go ahead and ignore the existence of a similar, or identical effect. It is also, in the end, only bad for BOTH parties involved.

 

[Shodan]

I believe the correct term would be "independant development". You come up with something yourself, but it turns out not to be original with you - you discovered it independantly, which aint nothing.

I think if you're serious about sharing things like this with a greter community, then you then have to take on the responsibility to research the history of it. So when you show the guys down at the magic club, you're able to give them the correct crediting.

Of course, the nice thing about being creative and keeping it to yourself is that you don't have this responsibility to the same degree. In fact, the only real reason for researching something you developed independantly is to see if you can improve on your methodology based on what others have contributed to it - a personal responsibility.

 

[..:Z:..]

You do not have to have "created" (or more correctly, 'discovered') an effect or sleight in order to teach it IF that's your purpose: just to teach. But, other magicians have already set the bar for you. If your gonna teach something that was taught in another widely-known source, you better be damn sure you can teach like a professional and there's at least 1 hint of originality in the handling, patter, presentation, ....whatever.

Good discussion, guys. Keep it up.

..:Z:..

 

[jimbowmanjr]

Effects I plan to teach.

I think it's everybody's job to teach other magicians. I go to a local magic club every month, and I trade tips and tricks with people. So I'm concerned that I might say "I invented this" and then someone might go "Pearl Ozman teaches that on his DVD!" and I'll look like a jerk.

So I want to know what I should say instead. Usually I say something like "I came up with this myself, but I'm sure I'm not the only one" and that just feels lame.

I think it is admirable you are interested in helping other magicians. I would just advise some caution that you do it knowing full well that someone might jump you for teaching material that people should otherwise be learning from the original source.

I can understand why you think it feels lame saying what you are saying. If you were to say this instead: "I came up with this routine myself and I found this sleight (show sleight) was created originally by Dr. Michael Rubenstein and this handling (show handling) was originally created by David Roth. I think the combination of the two makes for a really great routine but it is still something I am working on." Now you sound like a guy who has done his homework and someone who has professes to have similar creative genius as the two previously mentioned coin men in magic.

When you blurt out that you came up with all of this on your own I can almost guarantee that someday someone is going to call you on the carpet which will be extremely embarrassing. The reason it will be embarrassing is because people are going to think you a liar and stealing from others original creations and passing them off as your own regardless of your innocence in the matter.

The only reason I say this is because I watched one pro magician teaching a coin routine only to have another pro say "hey um, that is from my lecture notes in 2000 why are you teaching it?". Of course the pro teaching handled it very professionally and stopping teaching to discuss the routine with the other pro and mentioned he would get his lecture notes to see what the similarities and differences were between the routine.

When you don't know the history of something are performing for others and there is at least one person in the room who does know the history it can and likely will go very badly for you unless the person who knows decides to take you aside and tell you privately.

This is also some very solid advice from Brad on the question:

The answer is simple: If you have created something which you feel is original, start researching. Spend some time with the books. Talk to magicians who are older and/or more knowledgeable than yourself. And be willing to accept the what they tell you even if it stings.

I really couldn't agree more with that line of thinking.

--Jim

 

[CDarklock]

Now you sound like a guy who has done his homework and someone who has professes to have similar creative genius as the two previously mentioned coin men in magic.

I think to most people, that would sound pretentious and condescending. They wouldn't hear "I've done my homework and I'm creative", but "you don't know squat and you suck". That's not a good way to teach people.

"Look, you're an idiot, okay? Here, I'll make you a little smarter."

When you don't know the history of something are performing for others

How, exactly, would you find the history of something you made up? From my perspective, there isn't any history. I do this little flourish that I call a "double twirl". You just spin the card in your fingers in a particular way... but if you try to run a search on it, you get every flourish in the known universe, because there's no good way to uniquely describe it.

And that's just a flourish. There's only one way to do it. With a trick, I can usually think of a dozen or more ways to accomplish the same thing. Am I supposed to research them all? How much? What if I just don't happen to think of the right one?

Realistically, I simply don't think you can easily research the history of a magic effect without just randomly stumbling over someone who knows what it is and where to look.

 

[jimbowmanjr]

Actually I would want to hear "I have done my homework" because if I know for a fact you are doing something that has already been done by someone else I would be sure to let you know about it. I am sure quite a few people would like to hear "I have done my homework". There are plenty of people out there pushing something they "created" as their own only to have it reviewed in Genii or Magic magazine and get torn to pieces because there was zero homework done.

There are plenty of resources out there readily available to help you if you feel you have come up with something original. I have heard plenty of people talking about how they showed their effect to Nathan Kranzo or Lee Asher or Danny Garcia and been told immediately where what they were doing had already been published or done in the past. There are quite a few people out there they are virtual encyclopedia's of magical history that are willing to help others out. If people want to ignore that type of resource and just wing it, hey it's your credibility on the line not mine.

There were pages of references to pulse stop material at the end of Control. No one stumbled across that information, they went and did their homework before teaching it on the DVD. The only reason I am even mentioning this is to save people the possible embarrassment of looking like a clown for passing a prior creation off as their own. No skin off my nose....

--Jim

 

[Shodan]

Researching a flourish may be a little tricky, but researching a magic trick should be no problem at all. After all, a magic trick is fairly easily defined by it's effect, and with the ease of communication that the internet facilitates, its a piece of cake to stick the effect ona public forum to find out who knows what about it.

The folks over at the magic cafe are particularly good with this kind of thing. Of course, if you build up an extensive library of magic publications, then you can refer to that.

 

[Glenn West]

You do not have to have "created" (or more correctly, 'discovered') an effect or sleight in order to teach it IF that's your purpose: just to teach. But, other magicians have already set the bar for you. If your gonna teach something that was taught in another widely-known source, you better be damn sure you can teach like a professional and there's at least 1 hint of originality in the handling, patter, presentation, ....whatever.

Good discussion, guys. Keep it up.

..:Z:..

Generally, then, it would not be yours to teach. Sharing your thoughts on it is one thing.
Mind you, many magicians share effects they have learnt else where from someone else, or from some book.

Generally, I feel it is best not to go step by step over an effect that you learnt in someone else's book, or video.

Using the effect to start a discussion about something, or sharing your thoughts on what you may feel is an improvement, sure, but if someone is interested in the effect itself, I suggest pointing them in the direction of the original source.

Not only is this respectful of the creator, but it also serves them better as they will learn so much better from a source they can keep and review, over a brief conversation with you.

Going over the idea behind it, commenting on how it is unique, or the benefits of it, may lead to an over view of the basic workings of the effect, which I am fine with, myself, but still, do not attempt to teach the effect start to finish, as it is just better for everyone for people to have the actual material to learn from. yourself.

 

[Glenn West]

Yeah, a flourish that you have no name for, verses an effect which can be described precisely in a few words, or at least searched under a specific category, ie mentalism, and then subcategory, prediction, peek, book test, etc, big difference.

With forums like this, where we have some of the greatest minds in magic running the place, and ones like the cafe where you have hundreds, if not thousands of fellow magicians who can help you out, there is absolutely no reason why one could not look into the possible history of a effect.

Same thing goes for a move/method. It is ridiculously easy to type "I've come up with this was of changing a card, or making two cards switch place undetected, or I have a new T&R card and I would like to know if there is something similar. Here is what is unique about mine. Here is what I think makes it an improvement. (Just a side note, so many people come up with something "new" and think it's great because it's "new," but they simply don't bother to think if there is any reason for it, is it, in any way, an improvement over what's already out there. Just because it's different doesn't mean it's any better than everything else)

Of course, this question asking would be AFTER you did your own search for "torn and restored card/mentalism/prediction/booktest/impromptu booktest/card switch/card change."
And just looking through the first three threads that pop up is not research.

If you did not, at the very least, trace back torn and restored card, for example, from Torn, to Ripped and Restored, to Reparation, to Reformation, to A Tear at a Time, to Ultimate Rip-off, etc, and then in reverse to see what has popped up in the present, then you have not come close to doing your research

THEN you can turn to others to double check,, again, this is IF you have a desire to release it.

If it is just something you want to share, then feel free to cut back, but not eliminate, the research, but also, I strongly advise that, when you do share it, you make it clear that it is just something you have been playing with, and thought they'd like to see, and make it clear that you are curious if they have seen anything similar.

This way, if and when someone peeps up and says, 'yeah, that's in Paul Harris' AoA book # pg 168' you won't look at all like you ripped it off.

But that's just my thoughts, I could be wrong.

Also, it's never too late to do this stuff and cover your bases, just look at Digital Dissolve, it's out again, and all is good.

 

[Brad Henderson]

You do not have to have "created" (or more correctly, 'discovered') an effect or sleight in order to teach it IF that's your purpose: just to teach. But, other magicians have already set the bar for you. If your gonna teach something that was taught in another widely-known source, you better be damn sure you can teach like a professional and there's at least 1 hint of originality in the handling, patter, presentation, ....whatever.

Good discussion, guys. Keep it up.

..:Z:..

This is very wrong. (Excuse the directness, but it's an important topic.)

If the idea has been published or already linked to someone else (via performance for example), regardless of whether or not you independently created it, the idea belongs to that other person. You cannot teach it without BOTH credit AND permission.

Some people think credit is enough, but many of those guys have been raked over the coals for not getting permission first.

If your idea was truly created independently and you can describe that process, I don't know of any creator who wouldn't give you permission if you took the time to ask them respectfully.

It never hurts to ask permission - EVER.

How, exactly, would you find the history of something you made up?

Good question. First, you go to the books. There are several key books for each genre of magic with which you should be familiar. With card flourishes, there are only a handful (though one of the best ones is little known and hard to find. It's also in French.)

You can try and find copies of the Potter Master Index and go through that as well. AskAlexander is a goldmine of information.

Then there are magazines. If you know the history of the art, you should be able to think of similar ideas in the history and start digging around the time those started to be published.

Then there are other resources. The Genii forum has more experience and wisdom than any other magic forum today. (There was one other secret forum, but it disbanded about 3 years ago, sadly.) Anyway, if you ask the question respectfully - AND it's not something that is really common knowledge already - these guys will prove to be an amazing help.

Then there are other magicians. Write up the description and film it first. Send it in a manner that the date can be established to a few trusted friends. Then start asking around. Post a video of it here. Ask the Buck Twins. They know flourish stuff cold. Ask the old timers in your magic club.

Yes, even them.

While they may not have seen your move before, it might remind them of something that they or one of their friends created 60 years ago and they might share it. Then you have 2 moves no one else knows!

So, that's how you get started.

Is it a lot of work? Yes. But if your idea is worth it, it's worth doing right!

Best,

Brad Henderson