The outraged practitioners have asked Spanish lawyers to devise legal challenges regarding the 'Masked Magician' (a less than catchy moniker used by Val Valentino) and his 'Magic Without Secrets' show, claiming that their tricks should be protected as intellectual property.
One outraged fan has reportedly used his Facebook page to call for the death of the Masked Magician - we're talking a brick to the back of the miscreant's head, a fender bender by moonlight or suffocation with a bouquet of paper flowers, presumably, rather than eye of newt & ear of bat - "for spoiling the illusion behind the tricks".
Don't hold your breath. Attempts to stop the show have so far failed and are unlikely to be successful in future, consistent with difficulties regarding IP protection highlighted in works such as Jim Steinmeyer's sprightly Hiding The Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear (Barnes & Noble, 2003), Oliar and Sprigman's 2008 paper 'There's No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy' and Jacob Loshin's 2007 paper 'Secrets Revealed: How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property without Law'.
Loshin notes that Valentino was the 'Masked Magician' on FOX in the US, recounting
The magic community discovered the identity of the masked magician shortly after his first television special, and well before he dramatically “revealed” his identity on the fourth special. The masked magician turned out to be a middling Las Vegas magician by the name of Val Valentino. One of Valentino’s magician friends, after discovering that Valentino was the masked magician, recalled that he advised Valentino to go on TV and "do a Jimmy Swaggart thing, cry and ask for forgiveness". Valentino resisted, and was branded by magicians as the "masked traitor".I'm looking forward to an analysis from Christine Corcos, author of the Law & Magic Blog, whose comments are a delight to read. [Her response is now available here.]
There's another sort of magical thinking in Suncorp-Metway Limited v Nagy [2008] NSWSC 20, a property dispute in which a pseudo-legal defence - the sort relied upon by members of the sovereign citizen belief system - was used.
The Court states
[7] The contents of the “Defence” throws up comprehension problems. The substance of it looks to and is founded on s 118 of the Commonwealth Constitution. It then appears to proceed on the basis that there exists a Federal State which is called the Independent Sovereign State of Australia (ISSA); and that such an entity is a state within the meaning of s 118 and that there is no jurisdiction to grant the relief sought by the plaintiff. Such matters are in issue between the parties.
[8] Save for the material contained therein which addresses this matter, the “Defence” does not put in issue the allegations made by the plaintiff in the Statement of Claim.
[9] There was a related matter. It concerned a purported tender of a cheque from what was said to be the Federal State Bank of ISSA. The plaintiff joined issue on the validity of such a tender.
[10] This matter was dealt with by Kiefel J in Australian Prudential Regulation Authority v Cameron & Anor [2007] FCA 628. Her Honour made orders restraining the defendants from, inter alia, carrying on any banking business in Australia. Her Honour took the view that there had been breaches of provisions of the Banking Act 1959 (Cth). In her judgment, she observed as follows:-
“This is not the first time that such an argument has been raised in Australian courts. Goldberg J, in Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Purple Harmony Plates Pty Ltd (2001) FCA 1062 at [28], pointed out that the Commonwealth Constitution recognises the Commonwealth and the States and Territories as the only entities in the federal polity known as the Commonwealth. An area of land cannot cease to be part of a State, except pursuant to s 123 of the Constitution. There are no other constitutional means available for the establishment of a separate political community in Australia. The property said to be that of the independent sovereign state here, upon which the bank conducts its business and in respect of which Mr Cameron and Mr Wheeley are said to be citizens, remains part of Australia.”
[11] The defendant has purported to rely also on documentation which presents as being from the “Federal State Supreme Court” (an alleged institution of ISSA). One of the defendants in the case before her Honour (Donald Cameron) is presented in that documentation as being the Chief Justice of that Court. The documentation purports to present Donald Cameron as dealing with an appeal from the decision of her Honour and holding that her order was “unconstitutional, oppressive and corrupt”. I do not regard this documentation as giving any support whatsoever to what is advanced by the defendant.
[12] It was common ground that the real issues between the parties during the hearing was whether or not the defence gave rise to an arguable issue. In my view, it clearly did not do so.
[13] I consider that the contention sought to be advanced by the defendant is plainly unarguable (for reasons both of fact and law). In my view, inter alia, it is unarguable to suggest that the alleged ISSA is an entity that falls within the meaning of “state” as it appears in s 118.
