She also doesn’t seem to realize that there are a handful of lawyers on this messageboard. From her:
But…but…Abb Dickson!
ABB!!!
I can do one trick really well. Spent hours practicing it until I could perform it almost to perfection. Do I now own this trick? Because if I do, I am already in the habit of telling everyone I perform that trick for how I do it after performing a few times and giving them a chance to guess, and I would like to share the secrets of this trick with the Straight Dope community.
I don’t think all magicians of the world would think badly of this message board if certain members decided to discuss how tricks are performed. I doubt it would even be the majority.
This is a debate that’s been going on for quite some time, and my opinion on it now is the same as it was three years ago: those who want to discuss tricks should be free to discuss them. Those who do not wish to reveal should refrain from posting, while those who do not wish to see spoilers should refrain from reading.
Umm, this is the messageboard in which people have described feeding their semen to their goldfish, right? in which people have talked about their most disgusting menstrual flows? In which people are currently comparing a US Senator to that frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex?
We kinda missed the class bus awhile ago.
And it’s not really like Cecil Himself is that much better: he’s a great guy, but Judith Martin he ain’t. His whole schtick, besides the omniscience thing, is making lowbrow jokes and insulting people for asking questions.
My understanding is that anyone who makes the slightest threat of ever suing anyone on the SDMB, or suing the boards themselves, is supposed to get banned pronto. That’s a great rule.
Closing threads because someone suggests, contrary to all informed legal opinion, that a thread could open the boards up to lawsuits seems pretty silly.
I’ve posted my own directions for making a chef’s signature cheesecake recipe before; I figured that because I was attributing the concept to her and writing the recipe in my own words (and with my own commentary on my experiences making it), I was copacetic. But now I’m wondering whether that would run afoul of the new rule.
I hope the mods and admins do reconsider this decision.
Daniel
Oh dear lord, I suppose we better get rid of Cafe Society in its entirety then. How is this any different than talking about how they did special effects in a new movie, or how the created the graphics or characters for a new video game? How is this different from giving people the backstory on a new author and how they researched their new book?
I agree.
I am an amateur magician myself. I know how most of the illusions are performed. What I love is the showmanship and the skill to do the illusions smoothly, which is the true art of performance magic. Revealing the mechanics of how to do it is immaterial.
Here, I’m going to reveal a secret in another profession that bears a strong parallel to revealing magic tricks: Buildings are built by stacking bricks on top of each other, with mortar in between. The analogy here is that the mechanic of palming a coin or a playing card is similar to stacking the bricks; pretty much anyone can do it, and some people do it real well. The art, however, is the selling of the illusion, just as the art is the design of how the bricks are stacked to produce either an outhouse or an award-winning skyscraper, and very few do that.
Damn it man, what have you done?! The litigious wrath of the International Union of Bricklayers will surely be upon us! :eek:
Whew, I’m safe.
The only thing I ever try to teach is how to write in iambic pentameter, and since no one can make money writing in iambic pentameter, I can’t screw with anyone’s livelihood! 
Seriously, though, deleting instructions for magic tricks is an ill-thought and ill-argued position. Even a book like 10 Secrets of Highly Successful People can’t copyright what the secrets are, just how they are written. I get to tell anyone I choose how to do the Atkins diet. Lots of people can benefit by controlling the flow of information–that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to abet them.
You think you’re joking, but when it comes to keeping their secrets, the Masons don’t fuck around.
Daniel
Tell me about it. When my grandfather died, he had a Masonic funeral. The fact that I wouldn’t be able to attend the actual funeral was one of the reasons I didn’t attend.
I think she likely was talking about the staff.
I don’t where it ends, but it seems to me it should begin with the banning of the baseless plantiffs.
I have been thinking about this situation a little, so I did some poking around on the internet about it. I found this site, written by an “anti-exposure” magician named Bill Palmer, which references the aforementioned Abb Dickson. God, what a hoot this site is.
Hmmm…if the site has such a “high profile,” you’d think it would be easy enough to just find it by typing “magic” “secrets” into Google. It’s not like the 'Net has any secret code words. Anyway, Palmer refers to the initials of the site elsewhere on the page, so you can check to see whether the site you found is the one he’s talking about.
Uh-oh! What was that brotherhood of magicians, bound to silence, deal all about? Apparently it’s not so powerful after all…
Paging…Mr. Godwin! Paging…Mr. Godwin!
But…think of the children!
Here’s an interesting slight-of-hand which illustrates our own concern well, I think.
Read the above quote carefully. At first, you would think the Pendragons copied Houdini’s routine, chapter and verse. In fact, they did no such thing, regardless of Palmer’s emphasis on the word “copied.” They didn’t show anybody how Houdini did the trick. They showed how they, the Pendragons themselves, performed the Metamorphosis, using their own method. It’s akin to claiming that everyone who climbed Mount Everest after Edmund Hilary “copied” his methods. No, they may have matched his accomplishment, but they performed the feat in their own manner.
Here comes our friend Abb Dickson.
I’ve got a better one. Magic is like a butterfly. You can give an entymologist a butterfly, and he can look at it, admire it and marvel at its beauty, and then he can let it go.
Or he can study its flight, examine its habits, and dissect it, all to see what it can tell the world about that species of butterfly, and what it tells us about nature and science.
Ignorance is ignorance, no matter how it’s presented. The five-year-old sees a pretty butterfly, but knows nothing else about butterflies. But he learns something about how butterflies “work,” not only will he learn something, but his interest in butterflies will more than likely grow. Maybe he’ll want to be a scientist himself someday. Same with magic. Show a kid a magic trick, and he’ll be amused for a few moments. Teach a kid a magic trick, and he’ll amuse others for a lifetime.
But I digress. What’s most interesting from the site is what’s not there. There are many attacks on those who reveal magic tricks. And, for that, Bill Palmer is absolutely within his rights. He’s free to say anything he wants about them. What he doesn’t–and can’t–say is that the revealing of magic tricks breaks any law, or that those who reveal the “secrets of magic” are contravening copyright, intellectual property, or any other legislation. And Palmer knows it. That’s why he refers to the Pendragons owing Houdini a “courtesy,” not a legal obligation, not to reveal secrets. Nowhere in the site is there any referral to legal action being taken against a single one of the magicians who reveal secrets.
Here is the last quote from the page, which I think says it all.
In other words, if you don’t belong to a professional organization, you are under no obligation not to expose magic. I think the point is clear.
I belong to a fraternal organization: the Knights of Columbus. While we are not a secret society, our ceremonies of initiation are secret. We keep these secret so as to not ruin the dramatic effect of their presentation to new members.
Now, so far as I’m aware, the ceremonies are not available to non-members. And if the SDMB were to post the text of one of these ceremonies, I’d be outraged; they are copyright to the Order of the Knights of Columbus.
But if someone were to explain what happens, in general, during such a ceremony, I’d be irked that our secret was publicly breached, but I wouldn’t feel that any lawbreaking or breach of legal obligation on the part of the SDMB was happening.
Am I wrong, Board Admins? Does the SDMB commit to erasing any mention of K of C ceremonials, even general discussions of what goes on? How about other orders, like the Masons or the Odd Fellows?
- Rick
A good counter-argument which has me convinced - apart from the obvious exception of members of the Magic Circle, of course.
Thank you.
They have, and TubaDiva has reopened the thread.
Interesting. Here in Florida, the Funeral Service is done at the gravesite with the family present.
Same in Illinois. To my knowledge, Masonic funerals aren’t private.
We attended my father-in-law’s funeral in Minnesota. It was Masonic, and we saw all the rituals and whatnot. Incidentally, that’s when I learned that at military cemeteries, the gravemarker symbol for atheists is a sylized helium atom.