Search & Destroy and Intellectual Property Theft
Just got back from DC on the vacation from hell
where the car broke down coming and going and cost
me $1400 just to get us back home. Now I need a
vacation from my vacation, if you know what I
mean, and I think you do.
So before I left I received this invitation to
send in a "move" to ellusionist for a new project
they are working. I actually have a couple of
things I would like to shoot and send in for
consideration but I have little free time to do
so.
While surfing the ellusionist site I came across
this effect from Aaron Fisher called Search and
Destroy. You may have heard about it. It is a
twist on a Larry Jennings' card sandwich effect. To
watch Fisher's video promotion, the effect looks
great. I could not bring myself to spend $29.95
though to learn a single card trick. The fact that
the DVD cover actually includes a reference to the
Nowhere Pass started making me suspicious. I can
usually reverse engineer effects like this, but
the video was so edited that it made the trick
look better than I suspected it really was.
So on the heels of my last Dan & Dave debacle
where I tried to purchase David Jade's Pixel but
was unable to download the trick and subsequently
found dozens of videos on YouTube which tipped the
method, I decided to search for Aaron Fisher's
Search and Destroy.
Voila! Another two dozen videos of the effect
being performed by young teenage magicians wanting
to prove themselves to be the next great
performer. While some of the videos were well
produced and the effect performed well, there were
many more which inadvertently tipped the handling
in its entirety. The effect isn't worth $29.95,
but if it came with a book of a few dozen effects,
then I might have considered buying it for $29.95.
One guy actually teaches the effect which kind of
amazed me. Another was talking about posting a
tutorial on his site that explains the handling in
detail. I was taken by the balls of these
youngsters who believe a) that learning a trick
and performing it on YouTube makes them into some
kind of pseudo magic God celebrity and b) that
learning the trick gives them the right to teach
it to others with blatant disregard to the creator
and ellusionist.
Why aren't the SAM and IBM teaching respect for
intellectual property? Why aren't magic shops
reminding youngsters that they need to keep the
secret, secret, and not to perform for friends
until they have mastered the effect?
So much thrust has been placed on producing DVDs
instead of print books these days, but video is so
much easier to rip off. Kids rip portions of magic
DVDs and post them on their sites or on YouTube.
This is blatant copyright infringement and
punishable by law, but first you have to identify
the culprit who hides behind a YouTube account. Try
getting a video pulled off YouTube over copyright
infringement. Try suing a teenager. Maybe his parents
would take away his webcam.
I know this is hard because for the past 4 months
I have been trying to get Amazon to pull two
ebooks of mine from their site. Over the years I
have written and sold many ebooks including Make
Your Ebook Sell and Publishing with EbookoMatic.
Make Your Ebook Sell is sold with reseller rights
which enables a buyer to resell the ebook as is to
others and pocket the profits. You may not,
however, repurpose the content of the ebook on
another platform. Well, if you go here you'll see
someone has repurposed my ebook and content for
the Amazon Kindle platform:
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Ebook-Sell/dp/B002ASASXY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250697658&sr=8-1
I lose a buck every time someone purchases this
ebook from Amazon.
Likewise, Publishing with EbookoMatic was a free
ebook written and distributed to promote my
electronic publishing venture at EbookoMatic.com.
So someone has repurposed my free content and is
also selling this title on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/eBookoMatic-ebook/dp/B0026L6NCU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250697798&sr=1-1
My only recourse was to publish reviews of my
ebooks explaining the copyright infringement.
Maybe Amazon will publish those!
Anyway, my point here is that I am getting
disgusted with paying through the nose for
one-trick DVDs only to see the effects revealed or
performed badly on YouTube. I think we should go
back to print books. I don't have an issue with a
friend teaching my effects to another friend, one
on one, in the privacy of their home or at a club
meeting, etc. I do have a problem with people who
blatantly steal your intellectual property and get
away with it because the Internet has empowered
them to do so without reparation and blatant
disregard for the creator.
Tag, you're it.
Steven
where the car broke down coming and going and cost
me $1400 just to get us back home. Now I need a
vacation from my vacation, if you know what I
mean, and I think you do.
So before I left I received this invitation to
send in a "move" to ellusionist for a new project
they are working. I actually have a couple of
things I would like to shoot and send in for
consideration but I have little free time to do
so.
While surfing the ellusionist site I came across
this effect from Aaron Fisher called Search and
Destroy. You may have heard about it. It is a
twist on a Larry Jennings' card sandwich effect. To
watch Fisher's video promotion, the effect looks
great. I could not bring myself to spend $29.95
though to learn a single card trick. The fact that
the DVD cover actually includes a reference to the
Nowhere Pass started making me suspicious. I can
usually reverse engineer effects like this, but
the video was so edited that it made the trick
look better than I suspected it really was.
So on the heels of my last Dan & Dave debacle
where I tried to purchase David Jade's Pixel but
was unable to download the trick and subsequently
found dozens of videos on YouTube which tipped the
method, I decided to search for Aaron Fisher's
Search and Destroy.
Voila! Another two dozen videos of the effect
being performed by young teenage magicians wanting
to prove themselves to be the next great
performer. While some of the videos were well
produced and the effect performed well, there were
many more which inadvertently tipped the handling
in its entirety. The effect isn't worth $29.95,
but if it came with a book of a few dozen effects,
then I might have considered buying it for $29.95.
One guy actually teaches the effect which kind of
amazed me. Another was talking about posting a
tutorial on his site that explains the handling in
detail. I was taken by the balls of these
youngsters who believe a) that learning a trick
and performing it on YouTube makes them into some
kind of pseudo magic God celebrity and b) that
learning the trick gives them the right to teach
it to others with blatant disregard to the creator
and ellusionist.
Why aren't the SAM and IBM teaching respect for
intellectual property? Why aren't magic shops
reminding youngsters that they need to keep the
secret, secret, and not to perform for friends
until they have mastered the effect?
So much thrust has been placed on producing DVDs
instead of print books these days, but video is so
much easier to rip off. Kids rip portions of magic
DVDs and post them on their sites or on YouTube.
This is blatant copyright infringement and
punishable by law, but first you have to identify
the culprit who hides behind a YouTube account. Try
getting a video pulled off YouTube over copyright
infringement. Try suing a teenager. Maybe his parents
would take away his webcam.
I know this is hard because for the past 4 months
I have been trying to get Amazon to pull two
ebooks of mine from their site. Over the years I
have written and sold many ebooks including Make
Your Ebook Sell and Publishing with EbookoMatic.
Make Your Ebook Sell is sold with reseller rights
which enables a buyer to resell the ebook as is to
others and pocket the profits. You may not,
however, repurpose the content of the ebook on
another platform. Well, if you go here you'll see
someone has repurposed my ebook and content for
the Amazon Kindle platform:
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Ebook-Sell/dp/B002ASASXY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250697658&sr=8-1
I lose a buck every time someone purchases this
ebook from Amazon.
Likewise, Publishing with EbookoMatic was a free
ebook written and distributed to promote my
electronic publishing venture at EbookoMatic.com.
So someone has repurposed my free content and is
also selling this title on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/eBookoMatic-ebook/dp/B0026L6NCU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250697798&sr=1-1
My only recourse was to publish reviews of my
ebooks explaining the copyright infringement.
Maybe Amazon will publish those!
Anyway, my point here is that I am getting
disgusted with paying through the nose for
one-trick DVDs only to see the effects revealed or
performed badly on YouTube. I think we should go
back to print books. I don't have an issue with a
friend teaching my effects to another friend, one
on one, in the privacy of their home or at a club
meeting, etc. I do have a problem with people who
blatantly steal your intellectual property and get
away with it because the Internet has empowered
them to do so without reparation and blatant
disregard for the creator.
Tag, you're it.
Steven
posted by Steven at
2:07 PM
