Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (called “My Youth”), my best friend’s dad bought a new toy and he wanted to show it to me. It was called a Betamax, and it was magic incarnate.

Here was a machine, big and heavy, that took in a plastic cartridge and allowed you to record things from television stations and play them back later. Over and over again, if you wished to. If that wasn’t magic I didn’t know what magic was. (And by that time, I was deeply into magic.)

Not long after that, JVC introduced their version of the video cassette recorder. The format was called VHS (for Video Home System.) My dad chose this format.

After the novelty of being able to record and play back television programs wore off, we were introduced to pre-recorded movies we could buy and play over and over again. The price was astounding: nearly $100!

I remember telling my dad that it would be a great idea if someone would buy these movies, and then rent them to others so they didn’t have to buy them. Well, a couple of years later someone did.

During the eighties, my father-in-law lived in Houston, TX. One or two weekends a month we’d pack up the family and drive the seven hours from Louisiana to Houston to visit. My father-in-law was an engineering type, and we spend countless hours discussing engineering solutions to various problems.

One particular discussion had to do with tillers (the gas-powered thing you use to create a flower bed for your wife, as opposed to the manually operated thing called a shovel, which causes you to put off creating the flower bed.)

I’d just purchased a new gas-powered weed trimmer (commonly called a “Weed Eater”) that could be separated into two sections. I suggested that it would be a great idea to design a tiller attachment that snapped onto the shaft of the trimmer. Well, it was a great idea and someone did just that years later.

In those two cases and for those ideas, I will never get any credit outside of my family members who were witness to the birth of those ideas. The guy who registered those ideas first gets the glory.

In magic, sometimes the same thing happens. The guy who created a trick isn’t the guy who gets the credit. But, mostly, that’s the way it works.

So. What happens when a guy creates a trick, publishes it, gets widespread credit for it, and then someone else comes along and copies it putting his own name to it?

Would you consider that to be ethically and morally sound?

I don’t. Yet, we see that happening more and more these days in this bizarre little world of ours called magic.

In The Magic Cafe not so long ago, a discussion broke out regarding a new DVD by Simon Lovell. Evidently, it’s based on a book called “Million Dollar Card Secrets” by Frank Garcia. (Randy Wakeman wrote a very nice post about Frank and you can read it here.) Frank left this world about ten years ago and left his estate to his remaining family members. They own the rights to that, and Frank’s other books.

So far as anyone I know has been able to determine, the permission to take Frank’s book and turn it into a DVD has not been obtained. I consider this a problem, and a very troublesome one.

The DVD is being marketed by a company called Magic Makers, which is ostensibly owned by a man named Rob Stiff. Googling his name and the name of his company will bring up a number of hits, some of them painting Magic Makers in a less-than-rosy light.

This DVD does not help.

Is the material worthy of being turned into a DVD? Absolutely. Is Simon the guy to do it? I see no reason why not. I like Simon, and he’s certainly a talented performer. But should permission first be sought and be granted by Frank’s estate before that’s done? I think so. But I’m just one opinion.

The bigger question, though, is do you agree?

I sent Simon a personal email asking about these issues. His response was copied and posted by him to a thread on The Magic Cafe dealing with this issue. (Unfortunately, that thread was removed from view.) What troubled me then, and continues to trouble me now, is the fact that no assurances were made that permission was, in fact, sought and granted.

For some people, evidently, this is a trifling issue. This seems to follow a trend I’ve observed in many aspects covering intellectual property. There are many, many people who put ahead of things like permission and rights, their personal desire to obtain a particular work. (Downloading unauthorized MP3s of a music artist is a universally recognized example of this.) “But I want it” seems to be the universal excuse, as though that should suffice.

Copyright law isn’t as hard to understand as some would make it out to be. But this particular issue has less to do with copyright law as it does ethics and morals and respect for the work of a performer many claim to love and respect.

This has to do with “doing the right thing”.

In this case, ask yourself if what was done was the right thing. Then ask yourself if such things matter to you.

This is an issue I passionately pursue, so you can expect this post is just the tip of the iceberg.