It is interesting how a certain type of magician always comes up doing the same thing over and over again. Treating magic and it's secrets badly by disrespecting the value of it. Chris Burton is such a guy. His website Secrets of Card Magic is such a case.
Basically 25 years old Chris Burton is a sell out, offering magic secrets that are not his own under the pretext of teaching. Here is the simple rule about teaching: Teach your own material. If you teach other's material you need to get permission by the creator. If the creator is dead you have to wait for the copyright to wear off. Any book published prior 1923 is public domain. Also if the author is dead for 70 years the book tends to be public domain.
The stuff taught by Chris Burton is not his own for the most part. How do I know? Well I certainly didn't pay for the "8 phases of access" each costing 25 bucks to unlock it. But I had somebody tell me what's in it. What do you expect? Of course the standard stuff like the Snap Change and other shit that sells well to the uninformed audience. And I gotta give Chris Burton some credits, as it took a lot of work to put all of this together.
Selling out magic is too common nowadays. I give you an example: The key card principle is usually one of the first "cool" things we learn. Very soon the "cool" wears of and it is old and simple and even pathetic. So it is easy to dismiss the value that the key card holds. Chris Burton seems to dismiss a lot of value. So he feels eligible to both teach and getting paid for secrets that aren't his. Weekly Magic Failure for me.
This annoyed me so I emailed Chris Burton:
ReplyDeleteTo: ** Chris Burton **
Subject: RE: Confirm your subscription.
No I don't want your cruddy free trick
I just wanted to let you know that you are a douche bag
You and your website are a disgrace
You are selling other people's intellectual property, tricks, moves and sleights that are not public domain
You should be ashamed of yourself
He replied:
Hi Tobin
Thank you for your email.
Secrets of Card Magic create 90 % of its own magic, you will find on any magic dvd , books or videos that other magicians are using the sleights while giving credit too the owner of the moves.
If you are new in magic this could be some think you are unaware of.
Many Thanks
So I replied:
'Secrets of Card Magic create 90 % of its own magic'
That is simply not true.
No I am not new to magic, I have been made aware of the material you are
teaching and the vast majority of it is other people's work that you
have not credited them for.
Making money from magic is fine
But what you are doing is theft both to the creators of the moves you
are teaching and also to the uninitiated people you are ripping off.
Shame on you!
All he had to say was:
Hi
That's your opinion and sorry you feel that way.
Enjoy your day