magic and stealing

[firecoins]

what exactly consitutes stealing? Most of the time doing an effect that is published is acceptable. However when other magicians perform the published effect and in particularly well know pro magicians is it acceptable to still perform the effect?

Of course...it shows a lack originality I suppose.

[Stray Cat]

Personally I would say that stealing is when you don't have permission to perform the trick.

If you can buy the trick from a magic dealer or it has been published in a book/video etc, you can perform it as you are being given permission by the act of purchasing the 'secret'

To me stealing is when you go and watch another magician and then simply copy in your own act what you have seen him/her do.

To clarify: If you see someone performing a standard linking rings routine and you then copy it, you are not stealing, you are simply being as boring as the magician you are copying. If you personalise it so it is no longer 'standard' then you are inspiring other's and you will find that other's will steal your ideas.

It is a tricky subject and I think that the morals of a lot of magicians leave a lot to be desired. For myself I always try to develop my own tricks and make my own props to be as original as possible but this does not exclude me from performing the needle through arm or silk through microphone stand or any number of card effects I have learned from DVD's and books and I do take time to personalise tricks I've learned so that I'm not just parroting the 'script' that comes with them and I let people know where and who my inspirations come from.

[Josh Redstone]

I tend to think of magic in the same way I think of other art forms, in that there are public domain ideas and routines which have been done for hundreds of years that no one will mind you doing, and then there are original effects, which I personally think you should not perform unless you have bought the trick, or been shown how to do it/given permission to perform in by the creator of the trick.

But even with public domain type stuff, it's still good if you can take a routine and make it your own, it shows that you care about what you do.

[rebecca]

A good performer watches his competitors, steals the good stuff and drops the rest.