Which of these threads can I start?

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**Moderators and Administrators, please clarify which of the following threads I am allowed to start in GQ. **

How does a magician do the “Disappearing Statue of Liberty” trick? (already several threads on this in the archive)

How does a magician do the “Crazy Man’s Handcuffs” trick with a rubberband? (recenly closed)

How does David Blaine do his “Levitation” trick? (several exist)

How do you do the disappearing/extending thumb trick?

How do magicians saw a person in half?

How do stunt men crash a car without getting injured?

How does a pool player do the “Reverse ball direction and hop” trick? (just made that up)

Regardless of threads being re-opened or decisions being reversed, we need a very clear policy on what is and isn’t an appropriate thread for GQ. Where is the line between parlor trick, magic trick, stunt, and game trick?

This needs to be explicit so that no one gets sued and no one gets banned. (I’ve got a hankerin’ to start one of these later this afternoon)

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I still wanna know how my uncle used to do the “got your nose” trick. Sadly, this may never be able to be discussed on these boards.

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Let’s approach the situation from a broader perspective.

Going back to the original question as posted:

This is, to our way of thinking, as originally posed by the querent, no different from these sorts of inquiries:

“Can anyone provide a good place where I can download this movie or a free link of where I can find it? It looks like a good film, but I don’t care to pay to see it.”

“Can anyone provide a site where I can download this CD without paying for it? It might be something I would want to listen to, but I don’t care to pay to hear it.”

“Anyone know where I can get this book without buying it? It might be a good read, but I don’t care to pay to read it.”

In all of these cases, the querent is choosing to subvert the process of compensating someone fairly for the fruit of their labor, however the product is presented. The main issue here is “I want this, but I don’t want to pay for it.”

There are quite possibly alternatives in all of these cases where a legal remedy for him to be able to acquire the product for free is available. (This includes online resources, public libraries, cooperative people who are willing to show him/loan him/teach him/give it to him, whatever.) If he is steered to such proper remedies on the board, that’s not anything illegal or unethical and that is a fair topic for discussion.

However, we would ask that our users make their choices carefully, taking their sources and their provenance into consideration when offering cites in discussion.

This is true of all potential material that might have copyright or intellectual property rights attached. It’s more of a dead bang issue with copyright, as that’s pretty straight up; it gets more complicated with dealing with intangibles like concepts, ideas, plans. They cannot be copyrighted, but there are some forms of protection available.

We never want to infringe on anyone else’s rights to their property. We want to be, no pun intended, straight up in all we do. At the same time, we don’t want to block your access to information; that’s what we’re about.

Between these two cliffs, I would hope our members can steer most anything they want to discuss between them and not crash on the rocks.

We trust you to find the right choices and we’ll help get you in the right direction when we need to.

In the examples you cited, if you post information that comes from a source that does not violate someone else’s rights to their property, it’s not a problem. It’s incumbent upon YOU to prove that you’re not ripping them off.

Finally, and most importantly, you should be aware that any legal action brought against the Reader for any reason, justified or not, guilty or innocent, will result in the Reader closing down the site. Justlikethat. They’ve thrown a lot of money into this, but they won’t pay any legal fees. It’ll just be over. So choose wisely, please.

your humble TubaDiva
Admnistrator

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For starters, I agree whole-heartedly with **TubaDiva’s ** analogies of “I want this, but don’t want to pay for it.” Whether it’s a protected work such as magic trick or movie, or an apple swiped from the farmers market - I’m hungry, but don’t want to buy this apple - it’s all a form of theft.

Now, here’s a big, fat, 800-pound gorrilla of a “but, what if…”

What if the OP had simply posted “Hey, I saw this neat magic trick. Anyone know how it’s done?” No mention of not wanting to pay for it, there. Would that have been acceptable?

More importantly, if someone posted what looks like a pure-intentioned request for information, and someone here provided that information without acknowledging (and quite possibly, without knowing) that the information may be a protected work, would the CR be in any jeopardy for it?

As far as copyrighting a magic trick, it’s obviously protected if it’s written down, and choreography is also protected, so I can easily see protections afforded to choreography extended to other planned, sequenced actions such as magic tricks. On the other hand, maybe not:

(From their FAQ page.)

I realize we’re splitting hairs with an axe, but we all need to be on the same page here, or someone will get their undies in a bunch and get us shut down.

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Wanna wrestle some jello?

It’s exactly because the boundaries are so hazy that we’re not able to say “THIS is legal,” “THIS is illegal.” Ain’t hard and fast.

Like so much of what comes up for discussion here, every situation comes with its own set of circumstances that must be navigated.

The sources I have depended on for guidance in this matter all agree on the following:

  1. Ideas, concepts, plans, these sorts of things are not copyrightable. This includes a lot of creative endeavor, including magic tricks.

  2. There are some ways where there is some sort of protection for “intellectual property rights.” This includes documenting the work in some fashion and copyrighting THAT document, which at least offers protection against direct republication.

  3. How far #2 goes in protecting rights, probably only a battalion of attorneys armed with briefcases could say, but I believe I have been reliably informed that there is enough precedent using this method that it is not a major issue. (I do have some reference material coming to me on this subject, but I do not yet have it in hand.) Apparently in work that is truly original, the descriptions/plans/methods outlined are depicted in such a way that to discuss it publicly in any form is to violate copyright.

  4. None of us are lawyers here. Myself especially.

We want you to have as much information as is practical and allowable.

We also don’t ever want to abuse someone else’s rights. We yell at people that rip us off all the time, so it’s not like we don’t know what that’s like.

Your right to information ends where someone else’s rights to hold and disclose such information begins. Where exactly that is has to be found case by case, question by question. We do expect you to be on your best behavior here and that includes having strong moral fiber; we want our Dopers slopping over with ethical goodness.

For most of you, this is not difficult.

If you slip up and violate someone else’s rights and we find out about it, we’ll remove your offense. On our end, we usually don’t throw people out for innocent mistakes. Intent is what drives that bus. If we think you did it because you didn’t care, or just to get us in the cack, gee, that’s really being a jerk. And you know what we do about that.

Since you are the ones putting information on this board, y’all got to be straight up here. I’d rather you err on the side of caution. We expect you to do right. We’ll try to help you figure that out as these cases come up.

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

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Tuba, please forgive me, but the examples you gave, with one exception*, all dealt with COPYRIGHTED material. Magicians tricks are NOT copyrighted. They are simply something that magicians don’t like to reveal, but there’s no law whatsoever against it.
I hate to point it out, but we’re probably in more danger by posting info about Scientology and Xenu and all that, as the Scientology community has shown itself to be quite lawsuit-happy in the past.
We’ve never cared what Scientology thinks. Why should we about the magicians’ community? It’s simply information.

We have all kinds of threads asking how to do various things. How to get rid of cockroaches. How to make light and flaky pie crust. How to properly remove wallpaper. How to preserve Great Grand Aunt Sophia’s wedding dress from 1902.

How is this any different?
*The book question. The OP could either borrow it from a friend who had it, or go to a public library.

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TubaDiva, your argument doesn’t hold water and your analogies are horrible. Downloading music, movies, and gettind a hold of copied books are illegal. Sharing information on how to do something without paying for it is not. Hell, getting information without paying for it is a large reason these message boards are alive. Sure, I can buy a book with directions on how to change my oil, or I could ask here and get free directions from Gary T. I could buy a cookbook with a recipe for Beef Wellington, or I could ask here and get one for free from Chefguy. Both of these posters might have gained the knowledge for these answers from reading books but they’re still not breaking any laws by sharing this knowledge on these boards. I can’t believe I have to explain this. Isn’t it super obvious that it is not illegal, immoral or unethical to share knowledge one has gained from reading books?

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I posted the following in another thread, but I am reposting it here because it seems pertinent to the discussion.

What? I don’t know who is giving you this information, but it is unlike anything I’ve ever read. (FYI: I’m a law student specializing in IP.) In fact, I’ve read the opposite.

Morissey v. Proctor & Gamble Co., 379 F.2d 675.

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I did NOT say magic tricks are copyrightable. Just the opposite.

Bottom line: DON’T REPUBLISH MATERIAL ON THIS WEBSITE THAT IS THE PROPERTY OF SOMEONE ELSE.

Sheesh, how many times do I have to say that?

your humble TubaDiva
Administrator

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You pretty much did say it, no? I suppose I better not stand around the water cooler and tell anyone how truly original magic tricks are done? Are you kidding me?

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I think we’re all in agreement here that that should not be done.

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“I got a flat tire but I don’t want to pay to have an auto garage put on the spare. Are the lug nuts righty-tighty or righty-loosy?”*

Its pretty much the same situation. The repair shop, like a professional magician, might not be forthcoming with the answers. The solution to either query is basic enough, can be easiy explained in one’s own words, and, as has been demonstrated(post #55, Balthizar), not protected by anything, legal or ethical. TubaDiva, wouldn’t you agree?

*The flat tire question is a trick since some cars have reverse threads for the driver’s side lug nuts.

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Nobody has shown that this is even the property of someone else. There’s your assertions, the communications you apparently had with someone else otherwise unconnected, and the word of ianzin that he actually knows what he’s talking about.

And I still want an explanation on why Trigonal Planar’s explanation was removed, since he was not quoting anyone else’s text and obviously knows how it is done.

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I think this is the most important part of this debate.

I can see why you’d be worried about someone quoting copyrighted material but that’s not the case here. This is someone explaining something using their own knowledge.

How could GQ continue if this rule was expanded to cover everything?

No more computer help threads? Aren’t there many many books covering fixes?
No more help/explanations of anything that is covered in a book. Isn’t that the same as your doing with regards to magic tricks.

Seriously, I think you should step back and think about what you are saying and doing here. You have rules about quoting protected material. Why go any further seemingly just on the word of interested parties?

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This example came to me in the shower today. IMHO, it’s a much better analogy than song lyrics-book plots-movie twist endings or what have you.

Pong. That’s right, Pong. The most simple video game in existence, probably programmed millions of times by beginning programmers. Let’s say I want to see how complex the source code is for that simple a game. So I come to GQ and ask, “Hey, how complex is the coding of a simple video game like Pong?” One poster posts the code of a version he wrote in a programming class, another poster gives a link to someone’s website where they make their version of the game available for free along with the soure code under the GPL or something similar, and a third poster gives links to an eBay auction to buy a Pong arcade machine and to Amazon to buy Pong in a “best-of the 70s and 80s” arcade game ported to PC released by Atari or the like.

As I understand it, TubaDiva will now delete the post that gives someone’s original source code for the Pong clone, the link to the downloadable free clone and source code, but will leave the links to eBay and Amazon with a warning to me and the other posters “not to post material that is the property of someone else; remember what I said in that magician thread” despite the fact that you cannot copyright an idea (in this case a simple computerized table-tennis game) only a specific use of that idea (like the offical Pong game.)

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TubaDiva,

You’ve been shown countless analogies for why your take on things doesn’t pan out. You’ve had lawsuits quoted regarding decisions that prove that reproducing the instructions for a magic trick in your own, orginal text is not someone else’s IP and indeed is protected for the person typing it up in a post on the SDMB. Lawyers and law students have stepped in to render quasi-legal opinions ans offer support to those who are on the side of letting these types of posts be published on the SDMB.

What is the hangup to letting go and allowing this, since there is almost no way on earth that you could get sued? Do you have a stake in the magic industry or something? Was it your eccentric uncle Bob’s original trick? :slight_smile:

I daresay I could think of about 100 other topics where people on the SDMB have come much, MUCH closer to suit thaqn this piddling little one.

Sam

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I think asterion’s analogy is right on. As is the analogy about explaining the plot of a movie (which none of the ‘revealing magic tricks violates intellectual property’ crowd has addressed).

This is also exactly right, especially because, as has been pointed out by a couple of people, Cecil himself wrote columns (presumably available on the SD site) explaining how certain tricks were done.

Tuba, can you cite for me all the cases - or, heck, any of the cases - in which Fox, William Poundstone, Cecil Adams, or any other individual or entity not contractually bound to secrecy have revealed the workings of a magic trick and subsequently been sued? I think the threat of a lawsuit in this case is either a bugaboo or else, frankly, blackmail on the part of ianzin, Mr. Dickerson, or whoever.

There is simply no legal authority that I can find that supports your position that you open yourself up to lawsuit if someone paraphrases from their personal knowledge of how a magic trick works, particularly if the performance of that magic trick is not the sole province of a single magician.

So let me ask about the analogy I reference above: if someone posts, “I don’t feel like paying to see The Village but I want to know what the big twist at the end is,” would it be illegal and/or unethical (or, in any case, improper and inappropriate) for others who have seen the movie to give spoilers? What if the others haven’t seen the movie themselves, but have only heard about the twist?

Once again, though I am a lawyer, I don’t deal with IP - cmason undoubtedly knows more about the subject than I do.

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TubaDiva, I think a lot of people would enjoy it if you would reply to the issues raised in this thread.

Thank you.

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The problem with your saying that is it does not address the situation at hand, since EXPLAINING, IN YOUR OWN WORDS, HOW A GIVEN MAGIC TRICK IS DONE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE “MATERIAL THAT IS THE PROPERTY OF SOMEONE ELSE.”

Sheesh, how many times does everyone else in this thread have to say THAT?

  • Rick
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"Consider what you think justice requires, and decide accordingly. But never give your reasons; for your judgment will probably be right, but your reasons will certainly be wrong." – Lord Mansfield