Magician Suing For Copyright Over Magic Trick

Fluffeh writes "Teller, the silent half of the well-known magic duo Penn and Teller, has sued a rival magician for copying one of his most famous illusions. The case promises to test the boundaries of copyright law as it applies to magic tricks. A Dutch magician with the stage name Gerard Bakardy (real name: Gerard Dogge) saw Teller perform the trick in Las Vegas and developed his own version — then started selling a kit — including a fake rose, instructions, and a DVD — for about $3,000. Teller had Bakardy's video removed with a DMCA takedown notice, then called Bakardy to demand that the magician stop using his routine. Teller offered to buy Bakardy out, but they were unable to agree on a price. So Teller sued Bakardy last week in a Nevada federal court."

Comments

What bullshit

[ryanvm]

I'd like to see them cover copyright law on their show...

As much as I like Penn and Teller

[RightSaidFred99]

This is insane. By all means call the guy a hack, tell everyone he stole your trick, but in the end he's not reproducing your image or any literal representation of something you did. He reverse engineered the trick. What if he changes the rose to a posie? Or makes some other minor change? At what point does the "concept" of your trick become something that's unique and that you "own"?

Re:As much as I like Penn and Teller

[Anonymous Coward]

If he's doing the exact same performance, what's the difference between plaigarizing Tellers act, or Lady Gaga's, or performing any other copyrighted dramatic work? If I went out and performed Louis CKs routine, word for word, I'd expect to have the hammer dropped.

I haven't seen this guys video. If he's selling a video of him doing the exact same routine, same setup, same moves, same 'punchline', but claiming it as his own - fuck him.

I don't see anything about Teller claiming he owns sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors, etc.

P&T tend to be on the 'intelligent' side of most issues. They tend to like to exploit bullshitters, and scam artists - like a guy selling a 3000 video explaining one of their tricks, and pretending to have created it.

I'll wait and see how this plays out.

Re:If he manages - you know what the next stage is

[mark-t]

To patent it, you must publish it. A magician does not reveal his secrets.

Re:Vegas huh?

[pixelpusher220]

Using something for 'commercial' gain can and should be prosecuted as Teller is doing.

However, the feel good, good guy reputations Penn & Teller enjoy, just might take a trip to the deserts of Nevada to the hole you mention.

Teller can be 'right', or he can be a human being and appeal at that level publicly to show he's human and then use his bully pulpit of fame to shame the guy if no deal is reached. But going to lawyers only shows you're going to be a douche about it.

The 'value' of his reputation (with Penn) VASTLY outweighs any amount of damages he could possibly claim by filing this lawsuit.

How libertarian

[Anonymous Coward]

to sue for government protection of your ideas. I'm sure litigation over reverse engineering of a performance something very near to the heart of free men everywhere.

Re:Very sad

[Enderandrew]

Why would a dance performance be covered under patents when all other artistic performances are covered by copyright?

The actual claim seems a bit dodgy

[Rui del-Negro]

Here's the problem with Teller's claim:

"As a direct and proximate result of such unfair competition, Plaintiff [Teller] has suffered, and will continue to suffer, monetary loss and irreparable injury to his business, reputation, and goodwill."

I give him the last one; his goodwill definitely comes out of this injured, but how exactly has Teller suffered "monetary loss and irreparable injury to his business [and] reputation" ? Teller wasn't selling a kit with the trick, so he's not going to lose any "potential sales". No one seriously believes that people planning to go see or hire Penn & Teller will change their minds and hire Gerard Bakardy instead, and Bakardy made it perfectly clear that his trick was inspired by Teller's, so there's no damage done to Teller's "reputation", either (i.e., there's no suggestion that Teller may have copied Bakardy).

In other words, this smells like a pure "copyright troll", trying to deny someone else a chance to do something similar even though that person is in no way a competitor or a threat.

Re:Vegas huh?

[LateArthurDent]

a legitimate application of copyright law

Screw that. I don't see how a magic trick can be copyrightable. The performance of it is copyrightable, but Bakardy isn't selling a recorded version of Teller's show. He watched the show, figured out how Teller did the trick, and is telling other people how he does it for a price. The equivalent analogy is if I go see a movie where a character gets his hand chopped off, figure out based on my own experience how the special effects guy made the hand-chopping look so realistic, and sell the information of how to do that to people, who will then proceed to make other movies where characters get their hands chopped off using the same technique. That's perfectly valid. The movie scene is copyrightable, the method used to film the scene is not.

There's more to a magic show than the trick. Presentation is everything. If the trick is so well know you can no longer present it in an entertaining way, tough luck, create a new trick. So yeah, Teller lost my respect.