Magicians speak about Mago Pop: “He is building his life on stolen material.”

[Republished from Genii Online]

The past four years have seen a monumental rise in popularity for magician Antonio Diaz, including winning the Spanish National Magic Prize his own show, El Mago Pop (or, The Pop Illusionist), on Discovery Max in Spain. Since the launch of the show, his fan base has exploded and he is now known as Spain’s most popular magician. Of late, he has been performing his Nothing is Impossible tour in Madrid, making about million dollars a month. The only issue? It sure seems like he’s stolen a lot of his tricks.

Diaz is a Spanish magician and is not held to the same requirements regarding copyright law as those in the U.S. Although magic tricks are not expressly copyrightable, that’s not to say that the performance of such tricks are not protected under copyright laws.

The performance of a “dramatic work” is considered subject to copyright protections. The argument then lies in whether the performance of an original magic trick is considered a “dramatic work.” These specific copyright protections can be used to protect choreography, pantomime, and writings and recordings in an act. In a 2014 court case, Teller (of the famed Penn and Teller duo) took a Belgium magician named Gerard Dogge to court for allegedly copying his “Shadows” performance, a trick which Diaz has also been accused of copying. In that case, the court sided with Teller, specifically noting that although magic tricks themselves are not copyrighted, the pantomime of the performance was. The victory was a positive result for the protection of tricks, but few magicians are in a position to wage such a lengthy legal battle.

The most recent accusations regarding Diaz begin with two anonymous individuals who attended Diaz’s show in Madrid and were “dumbfounded” by what they saw. They claimed several of the tricks on display were lifted from David Copperfield’s show in Las Vegas. For example, they described that in one instance, a Copperfield trick of motorcycle production and flying was taken wholesale and “performed so poorly as to be laughable.” Another aspect of the show they described as having been lifted from Copperfield was the theme of a boy finding redemption and resolution using magic to turn a dream into reality.

In a recent interview with El Mundo, Diaz was asked about Copperfield being his role model. He replied, “Without a doubt. He is the most important illusionist of all time and we owe him a lot. He has made magic and has shown that he can sell as much as a great musical or a pop superstar.” It would appear, according to the anonymous sources, Diaz owes Copperfield rather a lot.

It would be disgraceful for Diaz to perform these tricks even once, but he continuously disregards the pain he is enacting on fellow magicians. There have been allegations of him performing another magician’s tricks — straight from the source. Two fellow Spanish magicians posted comments to Instagram about their tricks being used without permission by Diaz.

One of the magicians, Joaquin Kotkin, claims although he has licensed his original tricks to other magicians, he has never given Diaz permission to use them. He licensed a trick regarding a live poisonous scorpion to David Copperfield, which would mean that only Copperfield and Kotkin could perform the trick, so imagine Kotkin’s surprise when he saw Diaz performing the trick without permission. After the Instagram exchange, Diaz contacted Kotkin to apologize, acknowledging that the trick did in fact belong to Kotkin and was used without permission. Kotkin is quoted as saying, “I sense [this is] his way to get away with this type of situation. Asking for forgiveness after being called out and justifying his actions by saying [he] was unaware about the rights of a particular trick, but I think this is his modus operandi.”

Kotkin was not the only Spanish magician to reply to the Instagram comment regarding Diaz. Aaron Crow went into detail about how he had heard of Diaz performing one of his tricks without permission and how he feels about the difference between imitation and homage.

“I’ve been performing internationally since 2003, always working on creating one new act and on perfecting the ones I have thus far. After 14 years I have one full evening show as a showcase for that work.

It is not the first time that my material has been stolen, copied or sold online — using my name, image and videos to promote their **** on top of it. This copying was mostly situated in China and Indonesia. There are also two guys in Ukraine doing TV shows using my acts, a guy in Turkey. The list goes on and on (and these are only the ones that I know of). A guy in Russia even openly wrote back on my social media “yes, I make your act, you are a great creator thank you.” The worst thing with that is that he fails to see the most crucial details making my act safe to perform. His ‘homage’ [is] a disaster waiting to happen, and it will happen.

None of these performers were high profile and this close to my backyard until now. So yes — I was really annoyed when colleagues sent me [image from Instagram photo] of Mago Pop, this being exactly one week after seeing Joe Labero doing an act that is also, beyond any doubt inspired [by] my BowMan act. This from a guy pretending to live the millionaire lifestyle, driving another limo every week, but having to steal an act from a colleague?

The saying that copying is the highest form of flattery doesn’t really fly; for me it’s highly frustrating to see my signature acts and effects being exploited and tarnished by inferior quality knock off props, inferior methods and performance.

If big names like David Blaine and Criss Angel show me proper respect, reaching out and checking if they could do one of my effects or acts — and respected my wishes — why should it be any different for others?”

In addition to the aforementioned magicians, Diaz has also been noted as using tricks similar to fellow magicians Cyril Takayama’s “Hamburger Grab” (involving a trick that allows him to make a real sandwich out of a video display) and SOMA’s “Paper Shred”, (a trick that allows him to rip up a newspaper and then magically put back together in original form). SOMA is aware that Mago Pop is copying his newspaper trick. He has “messaged [Mago Pop] several times, [Mago Pop] replied nicely, and took off the videos from YouTube that included [SOMA’s] newspaper trick.” Mago Pop also gave SOMA assurances that he would stop doing the trick, although he never did. SOMA is upset that Mago Pop is “copying several other famous magicians and there is almost nothing [magicians] can do about it. He is stealing intellectual property and building his life on stolen material.”

Legal protection for magic tricks is lacking, but copying another performer’s effect is against accepted codes of ethics. Here’s what The International Brotherhood of Magicians and the Society of American Magicians spell out in their code of ethical conduct:

1. Display ethical behavior in the presentation of magic to the public and in our conduct as magicians, including not interfering with or jeopardizing the performance of another magician, either through personal intervention or the unauthorized use of another’s creation.

2. Recognize and respect for rights of the creators, inventors, authors and owners of magic concepts, presentations, effect and literature, and their rights to have exclusive use of, or to grant permission for the use of by others of such creations.

3. Discourage advertisement in magical publication for any magical apparatus,effect, literature of other materials for which the advertiser does not have commercial rights.

The Academy of Magical Arts have provided their code of ethics in regards to the duplication of magical arts. Founders Bill and Milt Larsen clearly specify that members are “to discourage manufacturers from producing unauthorized duplications of magical creations by others”, as well as “not to duplicate any effects identified with regular featured performers at the Academy nor use another magician’s original patter or routines”. General Manager Joe Furlow added, members are to “recognize and respect the rights of authors and owners of magical concepts.”

Diaz is pretty clearly aware that he’s copying tricks from other performers, given that he’s apologized when he’s been confronted by the performers themselves. It seems highly unlikely that he’s blissfully unaware of the impropriety of such imitation and must be as least somewhat cognizant that the magical community finds his behavior unethical. For whatever reason, he just doesn’t seem to care.

Magic can be both wonderful and entertaining, but also complicated and mired with licensing requirements and ethical boundaries. Claims in the above listed accusations about Antonio Diaz performing unlicensed magic tricks may not be violating copyright law, but are viewed as unethical in the world of magic. Magicians who have spoken about their original tricks being used without permission have expressed disappointment that a magician of Diaz’s stature would resort to using tricks without recognition of the creators. There isn’t much they can do as Diaz makes millions using the work of his peers.