(orchestra music)
- Yooooup
Hey there, I'm Josh Clark, and this is Brain Stuff.
And this is the Brain Stuff where I explain to you
about the Magician's Oath.
If you happen to be an inspiring magician,
and you wake up one morning
and go down to your local novelty shop
to buy a few tricks to get yourself started,
that's all well and good, but you're gonna find
in very short order, that those tricks suck,
and that if you're going to have any tricks
that you can possibly base your career on,
you're gonna have to befriend other magicians,
and get them to teach you their tricks, and to do that,
you're gonna have to take the Magician's Oath.
And the Magician's Oath is a two-parter:
First, the oath taker is required to never reveal
how tricks work to a non-magician.
Basically, if you teach somebody how a magic trick works,
that person has to have taken the Magician's Oath.
Okay, simple enough.
The second part, is that you're never to perform a trick
in public, in front of non-magicians,
until you're good enough at it,
that you can maintain the illusion of magic.
So, basically, the Magician's Oath requires
that you not reveal how tricks work,
and not suck at magic.
Now, the Magician's Oath covers magic as a whole,
by not revealing how tricks work, and not stinking at magic,
magic as a whole can thrive,
because normal non-magicians,
like you and me, can still be amazed by a trick.
But there's also another more practical function
of the Magician's Oath,
and that is that it gives magicians pretty much
the only means they have at their disposal
to protect their tricks.
See, magic tricks are, at their core, intellectual property,
and in the United States,
there are no intellectual property laws
that cover magic tricks out right.
Now, a magician can go down
to the US Patent and Trademark Office,
and file for a patent for a magic prop, let's say like,
a box that you use to saw a person in half with,
but this presents the magician a conundrum,
to get a patent,
you have to explain exactly how something works,
and if the magician does that,
he or she runs a flaw of the Magician's Oath.
There are also some other low-level government protections,
for example:
A magician can file for a copyright
for the choreography or the dialog
that goes along with the trick, and actually Teller,
one half of the magic dual "Penn and Teller",
successfully sued another magician
for infringement on the "Shadows" trick,
it's a pretty awesome trick, you should check it out.
The thing is, this is a very long drown out,
hard thought case,
and for the most part, the Magician's Oath is all
a magician has at his or her disposal
to protect against their trick being stolen,
which means the magicians as a whole,
are kind of self-policing.
So, if you're a magician who steals other people's tricks,
or goes on to say the Fox Network to reveal how tricks work,
you're gonna find yourself ostracized.
It's gonna be hard for you to get work,
your not gonna end up any of the magic magazines,
basically, no one's going to like you,
and they are going to let you know that they don't like you,
because you are a jerk magician
who's run a flaw the Magician's Oath.
Now you would think that this would probably work
to keep magician in check, but you'll be work,
in fact, theft has ramped in the field of magic.
And a lot of people have a lot of problems with this
because it's just untoward.
But, in a really great article in Wired magazine,
by magician Rick Lax,
David Copperfield points out that actually,
stealing tricks from one another,
pushes innovation and magic,
because, as Copperfield says,
is it easier to go to the trouble of suing somebody
for stealing your trick,
or is it better to just go back to the drawing board
and come up with a new trick?
And any time somebody chooses the latter,
magic thrives.
Thrives!
Tell us your favorite magic trick,
you can leave it in the comments bellow.
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