Theory11 Exposed... Again!

[Fin]

Originally Posted by BCardician

There are quite some differences between my move and his move...... He is correct when saying that this is an improvement on an existing principle...... Rick gives about 2-3 minutes of Crediting and talks about the principle being old as hell(which is true), he does credit Ernest Earick and tells where the "Bow to Stern" Control can be found ("By Forces Unseen"). So basicly the guy did his job

Good to hear from someone who really knows their stuff concerning this move and agrees with me. No Mark, I wasn't missing a thing, and that's the point I know the DPS is very different to the Bow-to-stern for various and important reasons. My point was clear enough but I'll make it again: Rick and Albert have added enough of their own adjustments to the originals to warrant a new name; the moves were both very nicely updated. Again, I was never talking about the product page, only the tutorial itself, in which everything is done VERY well. I saw the product page, bought the tutorial, and by the end of it I knew where to do more research thanks to the extensive crediting. I was a happy customer and think this constant T11-bash-athon is getting boring.. But I'm not trying to stop anyone; I'll just avoid threads like this in future where possible.

A final point or two before I exit the world of ethics and expose's to get on with the much more fun hobby of learning and creating magic:

In all seriousness, the fact that some of the people who only watch the trailer and look at the product page but don't buy the tutorial are not going to get a thorough history lesson and crediting on this move is just not a big deal and I don't believe its a reason to be making Theory 11 out to be dishonest! Anyone who really want's to know about it's crediting/history will either buy the move or read up on it. If someone watches a trailer and then bases their whole knowledge of that move on that trailer alone, then more fool them! They will of course have a limited education

If you go all out to "expose" some product or piece of advertising you better get your facts straight first. In this case several things had been said about Rick's move that were simply not true. I should not have had to wait for BCardician to come in and back me up regarding the glaringly obvious differences between the moves, but thank god he did. I fear had he not chimed in we would have a generation of Mark and Albert fans who were indeed completely misinformed about the details of the move and Mr. Lax himself!! How ironic since their goal is to make everything as clear as possible In the process of doing this they have smeared Mr. Lax's character and misnamed the move as being the BTS when it clearly is not. I know you wanted to highlight the problems you see with the product page Albert, but you did also say

Originally Posted by Albert

Rick Lax knew very well that this is called the Bow-to-Stern Control. Knowing that, it has been renamed HighRise and from now on, it will be known as HighRise by 99% of the people.......they will say "Oh, It's Rick's new move."
........
Fin, imagine someone took a song of yours you composed, switched a few notes around......That's the situation here.

You know as well as anyone that a few differences in finger positioning are no small thing in card magic. Saying two moves with different names are the same when they clearly are not is hardly just a slight error in judgement. If we are going to be exposing others we really should get everything straight FIRST should we not? And with all due respect to yourself Albert, you didn't here. Yes, you and Mark do have the respect of many people, so getting things accurate is a must if you are going to be having a dig at other people/companies in such a public way as this.

For the benefit of anyone who has been confused by some of the things said by Mark and Albert in this thread about "High Rise", I think we can now be clear that:

- The major differences between High Rise and Earicks move are blindingly obvious, not slight at all. The overall effect is the same; the handling is quite different!
- The move is not a copy of "Blind Square" either!
- Rick is completely justified in releasing this under a new name
- He did not just steal the move and rename it AT ALL
- He thoroughly credited Ernest Earick and others during the tutorial
- In several respected magicians opinions there are problems with the lack of crediting on the product page that should be resolved

[Albert]

Originally Posted by Fin

For the benefit of anyone who has been confused by some of the things said by Mark and Albert in this thread about "High Rise", I think we can now be clear that:

- The major differences between High Rise and Earicks move are blindingly obvious, not slight at all. The overall effect is the same; the handling is quite different!
- The move is not a copy of "Blind Square" either!
- Rick is completely justified in releasing this under a new name
- He did not just steal the move and rename it AT ALL
- He thoroughly credited Ernest Earick and others during the tutorial
- In several respected magicians opinions there are problems with the lack of crediting on the product page that should be resolved

Thank you for making that clear Fin

Yes, as I've told Cris in my previous post, my biggest (and possibly only) concern regarding this matter was the fact that there was a lack of crediting on the products page. I agree with what you have said above, but I still believe that open and publicized crediting is very important regardless what others may think. I don't believe I said that Theory11 was being dishonest because of that (maybe I did, I don't remember ). I do know for a fact that I said and meant that they were misleading, which could give false information to people, especially new magicians.

That's that for my part of this discussion about crediting.

Originally Posted by Fin

I fear had he not chimed in we would have a generation of Mark and Albert fans who were indeed completely misinformed about the details of the move and Mr. Lax himself!!

Yup, my statement about "slight variation" is my mistake . But, other than that, the only thing I believe I said directly about the move was that the core principles were the same

[TommySteal]

Originally Posted by Fin

I was a happy customer and think this constant T11-bash-athon is getting boring.. But I'm not trying to stop anyone; I'll just avoid threads like this in future where possible.

A final point or two before I exit the world of ethics and expose's to get on with the much more fun hobby of learning and creating magic:

For the benefit of anyone who has been confused by some of the things said by Mark and Albert in this thread about "High Rise", I think we can now be clear that:

- The major differences between High Rise and Earicks move are blindingly obvious, not slight at all. The overall effect is the same; the handling is quite different!
- The move is not a copy of "Blind Square" either!
- Rick is completely justified in releasing this under a new name
- He did not just steal the move and rename it AT ALL
- He thoroughly credited Ernest Earick and others during the tutorial
- In several respected magicians opinions there are problems with the lack of crediting on the product page that should be resolved

Hoorah, finally someone talking sense.
Seems I was misinformed by certain members on this board, because up until now after reading all the posts in this thread I was under the impression that "High Rise" was only a very slight variation of a much older concept - hence my original post on this matter. Now, after hearing the truth from someone who has actually purchased the effect, maybe certain people will see sense and ditch this thread in the trash, because so far all that it has achieved in my eyes is the passing on of misinformation and confusion.

Thanks Fin for clearing this up for me.

[Fin]

Originally Posted by TommySteal

Hoorah, finally someone talking sense.
Seems I was misinformed by certain members on this board, because up until now after reading all the posts in this thread I was under the impression that "High Rise" was only a very slight variation of a much older concept - hence my original post on this matter. Now, after hearing the truth from someone who has actually purchased the effect, maybe certain people will see sense and ditch this thread in the trash, because so far all that it has achieved in my eyes is the passing on of misinformation and confusion.

Thanks Fin for clearing this up for me.

It's a pleasure Tommy. I just hope people bother to read this far! This is the problem with "exposing" people. It's a great, until you get a few details wrong, and then you just look like you had an axe to grind. Mark's core point stands, and I agree T11 could make a better effort on the product page. But it should have been left at that. I fear it is already too late and many a reader of this thread will have been left with the very impression you were. This is not good!

David, who I have the utmost respect for, just posted in a different thread yesterday, saying "Rick selling the move like his own also does not seem right..... High Rise was "taken" from someone you know, ideally Cris". Do you see what you guys have created? It's called "misinformation" or "disinformation". Unfortunately David clearly has not read the more recent posts in this thread, including the one from Chris, and thanks to this thread is under a false impression about the move and about Rick. I wonder how many other people have not read the full thread and hence have been left with completely the wrong impression about High Rise and about Mr Lax!! This is a lesson learnt, I hope, gentlemen?! And a serious one at that.

[Albert]

Originally Posted by Fin

David, who I have the utmost respect for, just posted in a different thread yesterday, saying "Rick selling the move like his own also does not seem right..... High Rise was "taken" from someone you know, ideally Cris". Do you see what you guys have created? It's called "misinformation" or "disinformation". Unfortunately David clearly has not read the more recent posts in this thread, including the one from Chris, and thanks to this thread is under a false impression about the move and about Rick. I wonder how many other people have not read the full thread and hence have been left with completely the wrong impression about High Rise and about Mr Lax!! This is a lesson learnt, I hope, gentlemen?! And a serious one at that.

For one thing, David's conclusion on the move being 'taken from Cris' was his own. I explicitly said (I believe Mark did as well) that the move was from Ernest Earick right from the beginning. Sure, there are other older sources, but that is one of the more popular sources. David knew Blind Square before the release of HighRise, so it's natural to assume that Cris came up with the move if he doesn't know any other sources of credit. So would it be fair to still assume that we are the sources of misinformation? I don't think so. Take for example the older sources that Rick gives. I was under the impression that the Bow-to-Stern was the original source. That's why I would obviously credit that and that only as the original. Guess what? There's older ones. Thus, I make mistakes because of my lack of knowledge. Then the whole argument starts about wrong credits and what not. Now then, I can only blame the person who told me about the Bow-to-Stern Control that there are older moves of similar kind and blame him for not telling me the older ones. Of course, that would be plain stupid and nonsensical. Now do you understand how important crediting and sourcing is?

And, good! That's the whole point of this thread. I am in no way what someone would call an authority in magic. I may have more experience, but like that, if people are so open to trusting what others claim, guess how much damage Theory11 has done if I actually did much damage?

Maybe it was a good thing that I made that obvious mistake since it clearly shows you how a single word can have so much effect on people. I hope you do realize the seriousness of this Fin. If I can do this much damage (if I did do any noticeable amounts that is), then Theory11, a company much more influential than me can do so much more through misinformation like you said. That's why it's so important to make sure your products are not misleading, including the addition of credits.

I don't think that's totally arguable, is it?

[Mark]

I'm not satisfied yet, so my apologies for this post in advance.

Originally Posted by Fin

In all seriousness, the fact that some of the people who only watch the trailer and look at the product page but don't buy the tutorial are not going to get a thorough history lesson and crediting on this move is just not a big deal and I don't believe its a reason to be making Theory 11 out to be dishonest! Anyone who really want's to know about it's crediting/history will either buy the move or read up on it. If someone watches a trailer and then bases their whole knowledge of that move on that trailer alone, then more fool them! They will of course have a limited education

That is exactly Albert's and my concern. For instance, see how many people think Wayne Houchin is the inventor of the 'Invisible Palm' for that exact reason, while Wayne didn't do anything original with it nor did he ever say out loud it was his own creation. He even kept the original name.

People can release and unintentionally claim whatever they want these days, all and only caused by the lack of proper, public credits to their video performances. Most people don't buy the releases and in case they don't know the originals, they couldn't possibly know better. There are a lot of people who think that whatever one releases through a magic company must be completely his own unless stated different so you can't blame them for passing on wrong credits.

Not only did Theory11 and Rick hide these credits, they have deleted them too. That is why I am making a much bigger deal out of this than I should have, or than I would in case of for instance Wayne Houchin's 'Invisible Palm' release. Even if you agree with having the credits put in the purchase, deleting them publicly goes far beyond. What if others start to work on the same principle and end up finding out that it is somewhat similar to 'HighRise' because of its performance? They may very well end up crediting just Rick and not Ernest.

If you go all out to "expose" some product or piece of advertising you better get your facts straight first. In this case several things had been said about Rick's move that were simply not true. I should not have had to wait for BCardician to come in and back me up regarding the glaringly obvious differences between the moves, but thank god he did. I fear had he not chimed in we would have a generation of Mark and Albert fans who were indeed completely misinformed about the details of the move and Mr. Lax himself!! How ironic since their goal is to make everything as clear as possible

Albert and I were the first ones who got to see the 'Blind Square'. The 'Blind Square' Cris talked about in his first post in here is nothing like the way it was, and yes, it has been similar to 'HighRise' as confirmed, so we definitely knew what we were talking about. I practiced, played around with, and performed 'Blind Square' myself and I know how close (in detail) it was to 'HighRise' (and I have had Toine who bought 'HighRise' and knows the 'Blind Square' too confirm all of that as well). Sure it may be Rick's independent creation and an unintentional copy, but it is a copy nonetheless.

There is nothing wrong with the release, with Rick and his character, or with the move whatsoever. It is just that I can't possibly agree with the way Theory11 deals with this. If they would've said 'HighRise' was an entire independent creation it would've been more acceptable, but it wasn't.

So to clear up the list, if Rick indeed came up with this himself which is what I believe and have always believed:

- The major differences between 'HighRise' and 'Bow-to-Stern' are blindingly obvious, not slight at all. The core principle is the same; the handling is quite different;
- The move is similar to an earlier (original) version of 'Blind Square' but is a totally independent take on the same idea;
- Rick is completely justified in releasing this under a new name;
- He did not just steal the move and rename it;
- He thoroughly credited Ernest Earick and others during the tutorial;
- In several respected magicians their opinions there are problems with the lack of public credits that should be resolved.