Blaney and George Robinson Note Knock-OffsInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

TO: George Robinson Haenchen, Viking & Collector’s Workship

Hi George:

I’m sorry to learn that Jam Magic of Crossvile, TN is advertising two of your Collector’s Workshop items, Gift of Time and Miracle Cassette Prediction, in the new issue of Magic Magazine.

As I say in my article in the November issue of The Magic Circular, the inventors should speak out when they see a rip-off of their products. They should contact the magazine editors to tell them about “the what and the who”, and ask that the offending ads be removed from their magazine.

Phil Willmarth is one editor who has always refused ads that contain known rip-offs. But Phil rightly says that an editor cannot know of every trick’s origination and cannot therefore recognize every rip-off. None of us has this total knowledge. So it’s up to the inventors, or those who retain the proprietray rights of effects, to notify everyone…magazine editors, Ethics Committee chairmen of the magic societies, and the internet forums.

Remember, with the internet there is no place to hide.

If Jam Magic wanted to advertise the rip-offs in The Linking Ring or The Magic Circular in England, and you asked that the ads be refused, I’m sure they would want to know and would quickly comply.

I’m sure you know Tilford’s ads are now out of The Linking Ring starting with last month’s November issue. It seems like it woud be so obviously fair for the other magazines to follow suit. It is wrong for them to now benefit with possibly more and larger ads from Tilford in their own magazines. They surelyknow that the main clout we have in fighting the rip-off trade is to try and get the rip-off builders and dealers out of our magazines and out of our convention dealer booths. They may find that the majority of the magic inventors will soon advertise only in the magazines that comply with fairness in this growing problem.

I wish you the best, Walter

Walter Zaney Blaney