In the second tutorial I asked a question regarding the copyrighting of an idea, a thought or a fact. Or even, a secret.
Officially, according to the Arts Law Centre of Australia ‘Copyright law only protects the material form of an idea, fact, style or technique, not the actual idea, fact, style or technique itself.’ – See more at: http://www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/legal-issues-for-bloggers/#headingh33′
I struggled to understand what the hell this meant.
But it had me thinking of a news article I came across recently. Previously this year, ‘Teller’, of the popular magic-duo ‘Penn & Teller’ became the first magician to succeed in suing another magician for revealing his secret! That’s right, a frigging magic secret! Belgian magician, Gerald Dogge, exposed Teller’s signature act on youtube, an act of which Penn had publicly stated ‘”No one knows how Shadows is done, and no one will ever figure it out.”
I was privileged to see this act in Teller’s show in Vegas a few months ago and I can understand why it is so highly regarded. The 5 minute, silent piece oozed magic. The audience, utterly spellbound, gazed in icy silence as they watched Teller cut a rose.. via it’s shadow. The bloody finale of the act has to be seen to be believed.
So… Where is the line here? What can and can’t we discuss online? If a friend comes to me and tells me his new awesome idea for a ‘top secret’ invention and I expose this am I breaching copyright?> If I post KFC’s secret recipe, should I be expecting a call from the Colonel regarding a multi-million dollar lawsuit?
Or perhaps these questions are better left to the likes of Mike Ross and Harvey Spector. Yep.
