Intellectual Rights To Magic Methods

Court Cases

Court cases provide the ultimate test for any of the possible rights outlined above and, indeed, often establish law in the form of case law. There have been a number of court cases in which magicians have sought to assert rights to magic methods and prevent publications or broadcasts. These include:

1920's-1930's: Horace Goldin was involved in many legal actions related to the Sawing a woman in half illusion, including a successful unfair competition claim in 1922 against the makers of a film that exposed the method, and an unsuccessful unfair competition claim in 1938 against the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for exposing the secret in an advertisement for cigarettes. The latter case was dismissed because Goldin's 1923 patent on the illusion revealed its mechanism to the public.
1943: Charles "Think-a-Drink" Hoffman sued Maurice Glazer for violation of his the copyright and trademark rights in his "Think-a-Drink" act. The Supreme Court of Florida upheld the trademark decision for Hoffman, but held that Hoffman's act was not "dramatic" enough to qualify for Copyright Protection under the 1909.
1947: The Harold Lloyd Corporation sued Universal Pictures Company for copyright violation of its film "Movie Crazy." In the infringed scenes, the protagonist accidentally puts on a magician's coat and he is plagued by a series of bewildering magic effects.
1998: Joseph Harrison and a number of other magicians filed an unsuccessful class-action lawsuit against SF broadcasting and Fox Broadcasting for exposing the secrets to a number of illusions on their Masked Magician special. They sought relief for violation of the magicians' honor code under Louisiana's abuse of rights doctrine, but were denied because the doctrine only applies to contracts and property.
1998: André Kole tried to sue the makers of the Masked Magician television specials to prevent exposure of the Table of Death trick.
2007: Japanese magicians sued local TV networks for exposing coin tricks.