The following are three stories of things which I have not personally witnessed but which were recounted to me anecdotally in various forms. I can’t guarantee their veracity.
1. At Blackpool magic convention several years ago Dirk Losander saw someone selling a second hand floating table similar to one of his own designs. To prove a point he bought the table in question and smashed it to pieces in front of the seller, admonishing him for trading in knockoffs. It was however later revealed that the table in question was an original which predated Dirk’s entry into the floating table marketplace. For anyone new to magic, Dirk Losander is considered kind of a big deal on the international magic circuit so this was a surprising development.
2. The same thing happened one year where someone bought a copy of a trick named Red from Craig Petty, and tore it up in front of him. For anyone new to magic, Craig Petty was kind of a medium sized deal in the British magic circuit, having presented a review show with World Magic Shop on which he had made his views on copycat magic releases very clear¹, so the fact that Red was functionally identical to a trick called New Wave Prediction by magician Bob King is considered deeply ironic.
3. I am an admin on a facebook group for magicians and as such I saw a similar event play out in real time this very week. A magic shop owner called James Anthony posted a special offer to the forum consisting of a special card deck for a trick named ILC², which is the signature effect of another one of the admins, Lawrence Turner. James claimed to not realise that this was what the ILC deck was, but he has worked alongside Lawrence as this trick was performed and couldn’t possibly have not known.
Intellectual property is complicated.
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or Parasites on the Shoulders of Giants”
