3 Reasons Ellusionist’s Bounty Hunter Program Will Fail
But I really hope it doesn't!
I recently got new business cards as I was running low on my current batch. I added a QR code and saw the option for rounded corners, which I decided to try as it would make my cards look more like playing cards. If I like the feel of it and people respond positively to the look of them I might delve more into this type of business card.
I look forward to seeing how they work with Pyro Wallet and other business card tricks I currently do.
In a previous post I wrote about incorporating some of Anton’s work in my sets, which have been working well. I’ve been doing “What’s in a name” by Oz Pearlman and this extra phase has given me confidence with executing the main effect, and provided justification as well, even if it’s not necessarily, I enjoy getting more magic mileage where possible.
Piracy and exposure of magic has never been easier these days with the combination of social media, file sharing services and the allure of attention and views online.
Ellusionist, a magic company who thrived during the advent of magic teaching in the modern age with their slick production values and visual tricks led by Brad Christian’s eyeliner has thrown their hat into the ring to take on piracy and exposure, but not in the usual way we expect. Instead of doing the work themselves, they’ve tasked the wider internet community with finding and stopping exposure/pirated Ellusionist content for a monetary reward upwards of $1000, effectively putting a bounty1 on all of their content.
This is a worthy endeavour that I wholeheartedly support, but I can’t help but question how long can Ellusionist keep this up?
It's Been Attempted Before
Magicians have tried to fight against piracy in many ways previously, whether it’s by putting up “fake exposure” videos in the hopes of satiating curious minds or branding tutorial downloads with your name so if you share it, they’ll know who you are.
The super creative and controversial magician Justin Miller once opened a service called M.A.P (Magicians Against Piracy) where magicians pay Justin and he’d go and scour the internet for any of your illegally uploaded content and get it pulled down. This was a great idea at the time but short lived as the time effort was not worth the money paid and one person could only do so much against the many pirates out there. Justin soon stopped the service and went back to creating magic.
Vanishing Inc branded their videos with your name when you wanted to download their tutorials instead of streaming. This too only lasted a short while, presumably as the cost of branding your name meant creating a new download file, which would take time for the customer to create and increase database size in the backend. Plus, pirates would sign up with a random name like 0001029magic and if Vanishing Inc banned the account, they’d create another account.
Creating fake exposure videos was a trend for a time, but I found they were predominantly effective at popping other magicians and deterring pirates for a short time. This too takes up a lot of time to create a “fake” method and film, but that time could better be placed into making good magic content. Jack Rhodes2 did fake magic explanations for a laugh, which worked in making people upset he wasted their time (much to Jack’s pleasure) but now he’s putting out good magic content and blown up to 100k followers on Instagram as a result.
Hmmm….I think there’s a lesson there..
They will run out of money
For each piece of content you take down for Ellusionist, they’ll pay you anything from $20, $50 to $1000 after confirmation and proof of your hard work.
The cost is justified by the money they could have made from all those views of their trick tutorial, which while true in a sense, if someone were going to buy their effect, they would have bought it already instead of looking for a pirated version.
But the biggest problems I see with this Bounty Hunter program is that it’s not going to be financially stable in the long term. A profitable business requires customers to pay for a service/product, not the other way around. How much money will Ellusionist be able to dish out over time before they no longer see bounties as a financially viable option?
Unless Ellusionist see upticks of sales for a particular product after it’s been taken down, are they seeing tangible benefits to these bounties being claimed?
I sure hope so because my magic journey essentially started with Ellusionist and I don’t want it to end because they ran out of money!
Piracy Will Always Be Around
Piracy is like the Hydra, you cut one head off and another one or two grow back in its place, except now one of the heads is an influencer exposing magic.
For every social media magician that is doing the right thing creating good magic content or teaching their own or public domain material to middling views, there’s a bunch more others exposing magic to millions of views. Which disheartens and annoys me to no end because they’re making a mockery of the art I love under the guise of “advancing the art”.
Justin Flom and Ekaterina are two examples of magicians who were well known and liked in the community but have since gone the route of exposing and “teaching” magic, all for the sake of views and ad revenue. There are moral ways of making money, but even in a dishonest profession like magic, we still have our morals and codes to guide us. It’s a shame some have lost their way, or worse, never taught these things in the first place!
Then we have the pirates that have no name, buy magic and upload the tutorial video online, those are harder to name and shame since finding out who they are is tough and they have no shame. Even more shameful are the “magic stores” that sell tricks for a fraction of the price, so they’re making money off Ellusionist and other magicians!
Ellusionist are no strangers to piracy, I reached out to find out their long-term plans with this Bounty Hunter program and hope to get a response soon.
What Can We Do?
So, after all that doom and gloom, what do we do? Give up the battle against piracy and declare defeat?
I want Ellusionist’s plan to succeed, and I think using the wider magic community as the soldiers in this battle is a smart and clever way to tackle piracy.
I think magicians shouldn’t stop at only Ellusionist content, they should take down any content that is being uploaded illegally or exposed without permission. The magic community isn’t a large community, so we should support one another, and make our position clear on those who aren’t respecting this art that has given us so much.
If you aren’t the type to go and collect bounties, then work on your magic, perform for people or create good content to post online, much like I’m attempting with this newsletter.
There’s a lot more to be said on the topic of magic exposure and teaching, but I’ll save that for another post. For now, know that piracy is bad, you wouldn’t steal a car or take money from hard working people, so don’t steal magic and support magic companies like Ellusionist.
https://ellusionist.com/blogs/news/bounty-hunters-within-magic
Very interesting David. I wonder if the illusionist have copyright protection for their creations? Does anybody know? Most magic is almost impossible to copyright. I know this from my experience.