Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Intellectual rights to magic methods


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result of the debate was Keep. --Deathphoenix 15:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Intellectual_rights_to_magic_methods
Original research: no external citations. WP:Point, WP:NOR, WP:V. No grouding in legal theory or legal citations. Pseudo-law.-- Muchosucko 18:29, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete merge anything that is verifiable with Intellectual property. Peyna 18:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep - I don't disagree with your comments about the quality of the page, but I don't think deletion is a useful resolution to those issues. This is an interesting page (I know nothing about magic and enjoyed reading) and has had several people contribute to it. -Jcbarr 18:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Interesting is one thing, but please bear in mind that we cannot publish original research or things which are unverifiable. Peyna 19:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * There are references on this page which clearly provide verifiability. Certainly this article is someone's newly created words, but per WP:NOR, I'm not sure it qualifies as "novel narrative or historical interpretation". I'm not a lawyer and certainly not qualified to find the right references, but there are references listed here which make most of the statements in the article obvious.  You could remove the parts of this article which seem to make assertions of law without deleting the whole thing. -Jcbarr 21:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The references provided are non sequitur to the thesis. The legal thesis on the page, if there is one, simply has no basis in law, but the authors refer to legal code to produce a pseudo-legal argument.--Muchosucko 22:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Added a couple of things to the page, as Muchosucko wanted--TStone 05:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The references provided continue to be non sequitur to the thesis. The legal thesis on the page, if there is one, simply has no basis in law, but the authors refer to legal code to produce a pseudo-legal argument.--Muchosucko 22:17, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete, WP:NOR applies to all articles without exception. Even the interesting ones. Lord Bob 21:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge into Magic (illusion); failing that, Keep. The topic is of interest, there are 3 pertinent external hyperlink references, and the text, while possibly not currently up to The perfect article standards, is far from unredeemable.  Magic (illusion) is a pretty sharp article; the folks who keep an eye on it would have the (admitted) flaws of this text whipped into Wikipedia-shape before you could say 'Hocus-pocus'. -Ikkyu2 22:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep Flawed but interesting article on a good topic which has moved to the forefront as the walls of secrecy around magic methods have fallen in recent years. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  23:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Surely there must be cases of actual intellectual property disputes with regards to magic methods.  So put a cleanup tag up and get those documented.  --TreyHarris 02:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm doing some cursory research and not finding much. First, to get a patent, they'd have to make their secret public after a couple of years, which would make it not very wise to get one.  They'd be most likely to use trade secret protection, but as soon as someone reverse engineered it, they're through.  Secondly, most of the stuff they do has been in the public domain for a long time, everyone knows it.  Third, while they could surely copyright any of their performance, they wouldn't be able to stop someone from doing the same thing unless they wrote down the steps they took and then copyrighted it; however, at that point they're giving everything away again and since it would have to fall under "choreography" most likely, which would provide them minimal protection.  I can no find evidence of anything aside from patents on specific magician devices and a case where Fox was sued for copying a show on another station where a "masked magician" revealed secrets.  This article is merely speculation and original research. Peyna 03:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * This issue has been dicussed to death by those ignorant of the law here: Talk:Out of This World (card trick) I'm afraid the simple fact is that the legal system and keeping magic tricks secret have no overlap. Blending the two is original research. No outside references are available.It is not a matter of "interest" or an argument: there is simply no factual value in this article because it is original research.--Muchosucko 04:31, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, David Copperfield has a team of lawyers that are working on things like this. They are quite tight-lipped, but I heard they won a case in France a few years back, I'm sorry I can't point you at a source and it might even be an urban tale --TStone 23:53, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:NOR -- Thesquire (talk - contribs) 06:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, this is definitely encyclopedic. I'm aware of the NOR issues. Stifle 12:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, but I wouldn't be adverse to a move into the Wikipedia: namespace if no one can find citations. It gives us somewhere to point the folks who constantly blank magic-related articles (King levitation got the worst of it before being merged, but they've still got a fairly broad list of targets). &#8212;Cryptic (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge into exposure (magic), remove the POV and OR. Samohyl Jan 02:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. I see four sections, all of which are entirely verifiable.  Magic secrets are not covered by copyright, usually not covered by patent or trade secret, and are covered by the ethical standards of the magic community.  What on this page constitutes original research? Kleg 18:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Reply: Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Intellectual_rights_to_magic_methods
 * Keep. I don't disagree that this article could be better, but the topic seems encyclopedic to me.  If you feel there is some original research, mark it or delete it.  I found a book reference to the patent of Pepper's Ghost and cited it.  The article needs to be cleaned up, not deleted. Mr. Know-It-All 23:08, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep The article is interesting,it may need expansion or merging with another article but im against deleting the information altogether. It is usefull and expands the readers understanding of maical practice --Seth Turner 15:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Interesting article, no doubt about it, but subject to WP:NOR. Schutz 22:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete The topic is interesting, but the article was horrible to begin with, stuffed with original research and claims that was untrue (like the silly idea that it was possible to patent a magic effect). The title of the page said "intellectual rights" but not a single word on the page dealt with intellectual rights - instead it was all about something as esoteric and irrelevant as "secrets", as if any creator in the field ever thought about "secrets" when their creations were stolen, their names stripped from the work and had to see how others passed on their work as their own. The whole piece were just fiction designed to justify the act of taking material from people that were unprotected by law to begin with. In this field, it isn't necessary with any justifications - just take the works from the creators, there's no legal obstacles in the way. First I thought I just should delete the mess myself, but I edited it instead. Didn't become much better, almost the same amount of original research as before - but at least something that reflected a reality, instead of a fiction. So yes! Delete the mess. There exists no legal intellectual rights at all for creators in this particular field of artistic expressions - and it is deceptive to have a page that seem to claim that there is --TStone 23:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.