There are some dealers here at FISM 2009 who are known to be “copyists”, however all dealers were asked to sign a document where they agreed they would not sell any “rip-off” items at their stand. Not the ideal anti-piracy situation, but at least a start.
Despite that, there have been a couple of minor incidents (one dealer had a brochure offering many illusions including Impaled, Origami and Suspended Dimension – another was selling homemade D’Lites... a few stands away from Rocco) but the FISM officials have handled these breaches of the rules professionally and efficiently. Every copy they are made aware of is being taken seriously and dealt with immediately.
On the other hand it seems as if they’ve just given up on the whole NO VIDEO and NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY rule. Unlike Stockholm, where the rule was aggressively enforced, they’re not even making announcements anymore.
Many performers are having to approach people sitting in the audience of shows and competitions (some with tripods!) and asking them to stop videotaping. Sometimes they stop, only to start again a few minutes later. These people can’t plead ignorance. They just seem to think they are above the rules.
One performer even spotted a security guard standing in a show and was about to ask him to stop someone filming, when he noticed the guard had a camera and was filming the show too!
It’s not just the Asian delegates doing this, but many European, American and even an Australian delegate have been spotted filming entire shows. When all of the other delegates see people taping a show and no officials seem bothered by it (one last night was sitting directly behind Eric Eswin with his camera blatantly held above Eric’s head) then everyone else will join in too.
But then, if you make a rule and don’t enforce it, it’s not really a rule is it?
It’s not as if FISM can’t do anything about it. There are literally hundreds of security guards and volunteers everywhere. If FISM told them to confiscate cameras they’d actually have something to do.
One of the main reasons a lot of Americans and Europeans didn’t want to attend FISM China was they felt their act would be illegally videotaped.
I’m sorry to have to say it, but you were right.
Not only that, but some of the local Chinese magicians told me that DVDs of FISM shows are already on sale in Beijing.
