Indecent Exposure

Interesting discussion here on THE MAGIC CAFE. It started of by a magician being outraged by Dave J Castle's exposure website but ends up with several magicians pointing the finger at those magicians who sell their secrets in the form of books, DVDs, or packaged tricks.

In other words, to quote:

However - and here comes the interesting part - knowing that the book/DVD/prop will be sold in hundreds or even thousands of units - there is no illusion at the buyer's side that this is an exclusive deal. They see the secret as widely available for every Dick and Jane, as long as they are ready to shell out the money. That might be (only my guess) one reason that some of them freely share it around. Because the secret is no longer a secret but a commodity up for grabs.

and

IMHO if you are selling on an open market - you are exposing.

So what's their solution?

Ideally, I guess, they don't want magicians selling tricks to just anyone. Tricks could be passed on from one master to their apprentice, or perhaps sold one-on-one to people considered worthy, or people who'll sign some sort of legally binding secrecy agreement.

This, of course, puts magic shops, manufacturers and distributors out of business. Is this a bad thing?

It also means that those clever creators, who are not neccessarily performers, will be selling fewer units of their creations, at higher prices I assume.

It's funny how the adherents to this theory consider I'm living in a fantasy world because I suggest "re-educating" magicians to the rule of keeping secrets, because their ideal world is much more far-fetched a fantasy.

It would only take one Rob Stiff or Dave J Castle to figure out how a few top-secrets are done, and they'll bring out their own versions for the general public. Over a third of the stuff on Dave J Castle's website are tricks that have never been released already (eg: Criss Angel, David Copperfield & David Blaine effects).

So what is the solution?

We all agree that exposure is bad business for magic.

I blame the people who can't keep the secrets and promote exposure as "teaching" and I think we need to re-educate them.

The blame every magician who's released a trick for the general public and say we need to stop selling tricks.

What do you think?