

How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property without Law - gnosis
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/intellectual-property-and-magicians

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pmccool
From the article:

"Recently legal scholars have started looking harder at such fields, hoping to
find mechanisms that can support innovation without the cost and complexity of
conventional intellectual property law, and wondering how broadly those
alternative mechanisms might be applied."

Honest question: how much innovation is there in this field? Is there a steady
stream of new magic tricks? Assuming there is, and I have no idea one way or
the other, it might serve as a interesting counterexample to the claim that
patent laws are essential to innovation.

The extralegal protection system they've developed - essentially a guild
system - doesn't seem like a terribly promising candidate for broad
application. Among other things, it's more effective than the patent system at
stopping ideas getting into the public domain, ever. Whatever its other
drawbacks, a patent means an idea will eventually make its way into the public
domain.

edit: grammar

~~~
gnosis
_"Honest question: how much innovation is there in this field? Is there a
steady stream of new magic tricks?"_

There's a _huge_ amount of innovation going on in magic, and there are new
tricks coming out all the time. Especially with the advances in technology and
science these days, there are a lot of fresh effects being developed
constantly.

Of course, many of those tend to be new approaches to old problems: a new
method to levitate something, a new way to make something disappear or
reappear, etc..

Some magicians prefer to stick with the tried and true, century-old (or even
millennia-old) tools and techniques. But others (especially the younger
generation) really embrace new developments and new technology.

There's a real thirst for making one's act fresh and original, and for amazing
the audience with things they've never seen before. And magic suppliers and
magicians are constantly developing new products to fill those needs.

 _"The extralegal protection system they've developed - essentially a guild
system - doesn't seem like a terribly promising candidate for broad
application. Among other things, it's more effective than the patent system at
stopping ideas getting into the public domain, ever. Whatever its other
drawbacks, a patent means an idea will eventually make its way into the public
domain."_

If a patent is of something truly original and of something that really would
not have been easily developed by someone else, then yes, patents could
potentially have value to the public.

But unfortunately, patents are constantly granted for things which are really
obvious and for which prior art existed, or which would have easily been
developed anyway as soon as anyone with half a clue set their mind to it.

Also, at least in the case of the fast-paced computer field, by the time
patents expire the technology that was patented is often completely obsolete
and useless. Who really cares if the patents on punch card technology has
expired by now? We've moved far beyond that to the extent that it's useless.

This isn't quite true in the magic world, where ancient tricks still retain
the ability to shock and amaze people who've never seen them before. Of
course, there are fads in magic, and certain tricks become so popular that
they're useless... for a period of time, until someone rediscovers them again.
And, despite the best efforts of magicians, there are many many copycats. A
hot new trick will often be duplicated and reverse engineered in no time.

------
Tichy
I guess they can just use magic to protect their ideas.

------
fexl
I don't see the cause for ridicule here. Putting aside the medieval
connotations, a guild is simply a mechanism for sharing trade secrets among a
select few. Trade secrets are very effective ways of protecting intellectual
property. They've worked well for Coca Cola and KFC. Coca Cola chose to keep
their recipe _secret_ rather than announce it to the whole world in a patent
disclosure.

And what's this talk about benefiting "society"? If someone invents a magic
trick, he owns that intellectual property. He has no obligation to give that
property away to any other individual, ever.

~~~
jjs
_And what's this talk about benefiting "society"? If someone invents a magic
trick, he owns that intellectual property._

If not for the benefit of society, then please explain your theory of why
society should tolerate or enforce intellectual property.

~~~
fexl
First I'll speak of property in general, not just intellectual property.

Property is for the benefit of its owner. Roughly speaking, you own something
if you produce it yourself or acquire it in rightful trade from its previous
owner.

Society is a group of individuals. Any individual who does not "tolerate"
other people owning property is behaving very rudely.

I won't bore you with my views on intellectual property specifically, but I'll
just say that I think people can manage it contractually.

~~~
jjs
_Property is for the benefit of its owner._

But _property_ , as a concept and related body of law, exists for the benefit
of society—we tacitly agree not to take each other's stuff because lacking
that rule would suck for (most of) us.

 _Intellectual property_ as a concept is a recent attempt to recast things
like copyrights, trademarks, and patents—government granted monopolies
intended to serve specific purposes, and tolerated for the benefit of
society—as some sort of Lockean natural right.

However, if you are trying to reconcile the two concepts, you must face the
fact that _intellectual property_ restricts each of us from full enjoyment of
our actual property.

(For instance, I can't lawfully use my own computer to copy someone else's
copyrighted book, my garage-full of parts to implement someone else's patented
invention, or even my own pens and paper to market products under someone
else's registered trademark.)

"Manag[ing] it contractually", as you put it, would prevent this from being a
problem. (Whether an opt-in scheme would be very effective is another story).
However, this position relies on the right to contract, not any inherent right
to intellectual property, contrary to what your earlier post implied.

~~~
fexl
Yes -- I hesitate even to use the term "intellectual property" because of the
possible misunderstandings. To be clear: I oppose the granting of monopolies,
maintained by force, as in the patent system. I view this exactly as you do:
as a restriction of your rights to use your own property.

To me, intellectual property has nothing to do with owning "ideas." I think
purely in terms of physics -- mere arrangements of atoms and electrons. For
example, when I publish computer source code, I think about that act in very
primitive physical terms, as follows.

I publish my code on a server. The physical particles of that server are now
arranged in a different way. I have also physically configured the server so
that another individual somewhere in the universe can observe its structure,
up to a point.

When the other individual observes the state of the server, she alters the
physical structure of a device that she owns, for example a digital computer
or her own brain. That device is her _property_.

So, by publishing the code in that way, I have taken an explicit, deliberate,
and voluntary action which enabled the other individual to alter the physical
state of a device she _owns_ in a specific way. That device was her property
before she altered it, and it remains her property after the she altered it.
If I did not want that individual to alter her property in that way, I should
not have made it possible. It was my choice.

I concur with your emphasis on the right of contract. After all, that is how
people transfer property rights between each other. All I am saying that so-
called "intellectual" property should be no different -- since it too is all
about the configuration and movement of physical devices.

------
moron4hire
Most illusionists (I'm with James Randi on not calling such people
"magicians") can't support themselves as a illusionists. They work kids
birthday parties, making ends meet with other part-time and full-time jobs.
The same is true for musicians, we all know the old joke, "I'm a musician, or
rather, I'm an unemployed musician currently working as a waiter". There is a
huge difference between the demand (very low) and supply (extremely high) for
such people. The David Copperfields and U2s and Christian Lacroixs of the
world are few and far between.

Consider that teenagers are capable of becoming competent enough at illusion
and music to fill the birthday-party entertainer role. You're going to be
hard-pressed to find a teenager that is competent enough at programming to
work in this industry. Not saying they don't exist, but I am incredibly
skeptical anytime someone claims to be one. I know I thought I was at the
time, and I know much better now.

Almost every project I've worked on in the last five years has had some
element of "don't screw up or people could die/crimes could happen." One of my
previous projects was an industrial crane lift simulator for operators to use
to plan safe lifts. Another one was a logistics system to track shipments of
high explosives across the country, giving alerts and suggestions for extra
security details when near high-value urban infrastructure elements. I'm
currently working on a federal drug law compliance system; my clients want to
know if their sales reps are using drug samples in illegal drug trade.

This work is far too important to trust to part-timers and there is way too
much of the dangerous work to fill by a handful of rock stars. Toyota brake
controller anyone? And that was from professional engineers! Would you let a
part-time doctor diagnose a lump in your breast or testicle? People don't die
if a bar-gig guitarist misses a beat or a clown doesn't pull a coin out of a
kid's ear, but we routinely put straight-out-of-college developers on critical
systems.

Long story short, illusion and legerdemain are not comparable to software
development. We don't need a rock-star model for software developers. We need
more of a professional craft approach.

~~~
gnosis
_"Most illusionists (I'm with James Randi on not calling such people
"magicians") can't support themselves as a illusionists. They work kids
birthday parties, making ends meet with other part-time and full-time jobs."_

Do you actually know any magicians? It's quite possible to make a decent
living performing magic, and you don't have to be a rock star to do it.

You also don't have to do kid's birthday parties if that's not your thing
(though some people actually enjoy them, and they can be well compensated, as
there's a lot of demand for this type of work). There are lots of people doing
restaurant magic, and the going rates are well over $100 (sometimes over $200,
depending on the region of the country you're in) per hour. Magicians doing
trade shows and convention or corporate magic are also usually quite well
compensated, and they don't have to be named Blaine or Copperfield.

Magic used to be a lot more underground, but in the last decade or so it's
become much more mainstream and accepted, and the demand for magic has been
rising along with this trend.

------
sigzero
They make you disappear if you try anything funny with their tricks?

------
Charuru
Is this guy seriously wondering if GUILDS are better than IP Law?

/me facepalms

~~~
lukifer
Is this guy seriously declaring a legitimate question to be absurd a priori,
without any discussion or supporting ideas?

/me facepalms

~~~
roel_v
The economic inferiority of guilds over higher-level rule of law systems has
been documented a lot in economic literature. That is not to say that
questions can't be re-evaluated every now and then. The problem is that this
article isn't trying to do that, or to form an objective opinion - it's
reasoning backwards from 'IP law is bad!', and trying to form as many
supporting arguments supporting that a priori standpoint as it can find.

