Here Comes the Jerx: Petty v. Weber
/There’s lots of excitement in the magic community as the battle heats up between Craig Petty and Michael Weber. As one of the few prominent names in the magic community who gives a shit about none of you, it has come down to me again to pass judgment on who’s in the right in this debate over the new release EDCeipt.
If you are blessedly out of the loop on this controversy, here is the rundown:
Craig Petty is releasing an effect called EDCeipt. The basic effect is that someone thinks of an item from a group of receipts and you’re able to tell them what that item is.
Michael Weber (and Tim Trono) had a trick back in 2012 called Age Receipts. The basic effect is that someone thinks of an item from a group of receipts and you’re able to tell them what that item is.
Weber believes this new version shouldn’t be released. Petty, obviously, thinks otherwise.
As your judge, I think I should disclaim any potential biases.
Weber and Trono are supporters of this site, but I don’t know either of them personally. In the past, I’ve described them as “generous” because they usually send me their new releases for free without expecting anything in return. (I will happily describe anyone else as “generous” if they want to do the same.)
I don’t have any relationship with Craig Petty. I like a number of his releases (my first review in Love Letters was praising Chop), but I’m neither a fanboy nor a detractor.
“Aha! Weber and Trono are supporters! He can’t be a fair judge!”
Wrong, dum-dum. Being a supporter doesn’t give anyone editorial control. I’m my own voice in the magic community. If I upset anyone with my opinions and they stop supporting the site, there is a long waitlist of people to take their place. So I don’t really give a shit.
I purposely set up my site this way. I don’t rely on advertisers. I have no relationship with any magic companies. I have no friends who are professional magicians. I’m beholden to no one.
Here are the facts in evidence:
Stipulation #1: The tricks are the same.
In the sense that they use the same method with the same types of props to achieve the same effect. If you showed someone Weber’s trick one day, came back a week later and started showing them Petty’s trick, they would say, “We just did this.”
Stipulation #2: You’re getting many more variations and ideas with the new release than you got with the original release.
The original release was a page of instructions where as the new version has hours of video teaching.
Arguments and Evidence
You can see Craig’s argument in his video here. It gets a little confusing because he reads a transcript of some emails and multiple effects get mentioned. The only thing to really keep in mind is that Real Secrets released an effect called Age Receipts in 2012 and it’s the same basic method and effect as EDCeipt.
I reached out to Weber and Trono a few days ago to see if they wanted to give their side, but they declined. Then, Sunday night, they provided me with a copy of all the communication that went back and forth between themselves, Craig and Murphy’s.
Precedent
Legally, Murphy’s Magic and Craig Petty are completely in the clear. You can take anybody’s trick and release a version of it yourself. You don’t need to ask permission. You don’t need to give them a cut of the profits. Obviously, this is frowned upon and can make you a pariah in the industry, so generally it’s not something people do.
The “gentleman’s agreement” in the magic industry is that if you’re the first person to put something out, that trick is “yours.” And if someone wants to release their own version they should work it out with you first.
As someone releasing a product, you’re not expected to know everything that has come out beforehand. But when someone does come and say, “Hey, I already released that.” You’re generally expected to either pull the product or work it out with them and get permission (and perhaps give them a cut of the profits). Even if you never saw the original. Even if it was only in a niche publication with 30 subscribers.
I don’t think this is a standard we want to get too far away from. The ethical standard can’t be, “I can release this because I didn’t know about your version,” or, “I can release this because I’ve added much more to your version.” Because that standard would be too easily gamed by people with ill intent.
My Sympathies
I can sympathize with everyone in this situation. I can sympathize with Weber and Trono because the core of the trick is theirs. And if they were planning on updating/re-releasing it as they say, then this version kind of steals their thunder (and money). From Craig’s video, it looks like he doesn’t believe they were really going to do that. But I do know they have other releases in the pipeline that were originally published via Real Secrets. So it doesn’t seem out of the question to me.
But I can also sympathize with Craig and Murphy’s. They’ve invested significant time and money into this. And it does expand on the idea as presented in the original. Assuming they had no knowledge of Weber’s version, it’s difficult to say they should just have to bury this project altogether.
What Really Happened
I think I now have more insight into this situation than possibly anyone else. I’ve exchanged emails with Craig, with Michael and Tim, with an insider at Murphy’s, as well as a couple of other tangential figures in this story who have asked not to be named. I’ve seen the correspondence that went back and forth between the parties involved. And I’ve seen the instructions for both releases.
In addition, I have something in short supply in the magic industry: emotional intelligence. So I can give you what I think is a pretty accurate accounting of how things went down (although anyone involved can feel free to correct me).
To understand why it played out the way it did, you need to remember the RED situation. RED was a trick released by Craig Petty in 2013 that was a rip-off of a Bob King effect. Everyone, including Craig, acknowledges that now. Craig and Weber/Trono were on opposite sides during that situation. The whole ordeal caused Craig to drop out of the magic community for many years. If you have seen Craig talk about this situation, it’s clear that it was traumatizing for him. “Traumatizing? But it was all his fault?” Yes, it was. But you don’t have to be victimized by someone else to be traumatized. Cratering your own reputation can fuck you up just as much, I’m sure.
Many years later, Craig has come back. He’s a changed person. I genuinely believe he feels that way. Having kids probably makes you drop a lot of your bullshit. He’s doing what he can to try and give more than he takes from magic. He’s still polarizing and gets a lot of shit, but that comes with the territory of making yourself a prominent person in magic.
Now this situation with the Age Receipts/EDCeipt controversy comes up, and it’s about to trigger his trauma response.
On January 30th, Weber and Trono are advised of the existence of EDCeipt. They watch the trailer and send Craig an email that lets him know that this is not original to him and ask him not to release it. This email isn’t particularly friendly, nor is it adversarial. It’s fairly straightforward.
Craig doesn’t respond to this. I think that was a mistake. In fact, Craig has never responded to Michael or Tim directly about this issue. Maybe he feels they wouldn’t be receptive to what he has to say. Whatever the case, he passes the issue along to Murphy’s to handle.
This begins a series of emails between Weber and Murphy’s where they’re attempting to sort out the situation. This is another moment where communication suffered. Instead of just saying, “Here are the instructions for Age Receipts. You’ll see it’s the same trick,” they get into talking about other tricks and other variations that they published and it ends up diluting the argument and confusing the issue.
I’ve read through all the emails and they’re very fraught. It was clear to me this wasn’t going to reach a happy conclusion. Craig never chimes in, so we don’t get his side of the story. Weber/Trono use some language that comes off cold or perhaps legalistic—language like “Craig’s unauthorized copy” of their trick, which make his actions sound willful in a way they probably weren’t. And they don’t seem really open to anything other than the product being pulled. And Murphy’s just plays stupid. They’re like, “Huh? What? How are these tricks similar?”
I wonder how things might have gone if Craig had come to the table and said, “Shit. I really looked into this but this slipped under my radar.” If Weber and Trono had come to the table more open to some kind of compromise. And if Murphy’s had at least admitted, “Oh, yeah, these are pretty much the same trick. Short of pulling this product, what can we do to make this right?”
Then comes the turning point. In an email to Murphy’s, Michael concludes by saying:
“The facts do not favor Craig in this case and I sincerely would prefer that he gracefully step away from releasing this effect. It would be tragic for this to end up being another RED situation for him after all his hard work.”
This is the statement that Craig refers to as harassment and bullying. Because to him it’s a threat. Was it intended as a threat? I have to say, as an outsider reading the entire email exchange, it doesn’t read like a threat in the context of the emails. I think it was a genuine statement. They felt this situation would reflect poorly on him, similar to the RED ordeal. And that he would be undermining the work he’s done to restore his reputation.
But Craig—for whom the RED situation was not just a crediting debacle, but a cause of major distress in his life—understandably is much more sensitive to this and interprets it as harassment. It’s a trauma response. The same way someone who is attacked by a dog will be on edge around dogs for the rest of their life, someone who was devastated by a crediting “scandal” is going to be hyper-sensitive about another potential crediting scandal.
For them to invoke the RED controversy feels highly manipulative to Craig because in his mind there was one situation where he was completely in the wrong, and then this situation where he feels he tried to do everything right. He feels they aren’t comparable. So bringing it up seems like bullying.
Imagine you’re a 19-year-old gang-banger and you killed a woman in cold blood. Then you turn your life around and try and be a productive member of society. You’re feeling good about yourself. And then, one day in the future, a woman dies by accident in your presence, and maybe you could have prevented it. If someone goes and compares that accident to the murder, it’s going to feel like an attack. Because you’re going to interpret that as them saying that you haven’t changed, you haven’t grown, you’re still the younger piece-of-shit version of yourself.
So Craig makes a video that goes on the offensive. Essentially saying, “How dare you try and bully and harass me.”
Now cut back to Weber and Trono’s position. They don’t feel they’re bullying or threatening anyone. Threats don’t often begin with, “I sincerely would prefer.” They weren’t standing outside a local market in dark clothes, smacking a baseball bat against their palm and saying, “Sure would be a shame if something happened to your plate-glass window.” They were just comparing this situation to another crediting issue from his past. I don’t think they were taking into account the emotional impact of that comparison on Craig. So they see Craig’s video and see him so upset about something they feel they didn’t do, and they think he’s full of shit. They see it as performative. Using victimhood as a marketing tactic.
In reality, I think they’re both misreading the situation.
Craig was wrong to think that sentence was intended as a threat.
And Michael and Tim were wrong to think Craig didn’t genuinely feel it was a threat.
So now we have two parties operating under incorrect assumptions about each other and then continuing to push the issue based on those incorrect assumptions.
Verdict
By all traditional magic business standards, Weber and Trono have the ethical high ground regarding this release. It’s undeniable that they did put out essentially the same trick a decade ago.
That being said, looking at EDCeipt, this is clearly not a money grab where they just stole an idea and rushed out their own version. This isn’t a floating match situation.
It’s also hard to say that Craig and/or Murphy’s “should have known” about this previous version. There’s really no easy way to find information about the original trick because it was intentionally released in a relatively low-key manner.
I don’t think this is another RED situation for Craig. I think he did his due diligence and genuinely didn’t find information about this effect. Given that, I think it’s too punitive to say, “No, you can’t release that,” when they are this far along.
In an ideal world, I think Craig and Murphy’s should give credit and some financial considerations to Weber/Trono. (Someone with a better understanding of magic business financials could determine what’s fair there.)
In an ideal world, I think Weber and Trono should say, “Okay, this is unfortunate. But we’ll take you at your word that it was unintentional.” And not necessarily frame it as something nefarious.
You, as the potential purchaser, can make the decision if Murphy’s should have pulled this product once they were aware of the history behind the trick. It’s a moral grey area, so it comes down to your personal conscience.
In my utopia, when everyone found out about this issue, they would have collaborated together to try and bring all the good ideas regarding this trick into one package. The cover art would have an image of Petty and Weber holding hands skipping through a daisy field together. EveryDayChums.
The Wisdom of Solomon
But none of the parties are going to give a shit about what I feel about this, so I’m going to split the baby down the middle and say…do you really want to do this trick?
One thing to consider for the social performer…
Imagine I told you I had a trick that would be good for casual performing situations because it used “everyday objects.”
And you said, “Oh, yeah? What does it use?”
And I responded, “112 nickels.”
Quantity affects the “everydayness” of an object. Having one grocery receipt on you is pretty standard. But five?
Is this you?
I’m just saying, if you’re going to try and pass this off as a “casual” moment of magic, you’re going to have to come up with a rationale for why you “casually” have five grocery store receipts on you.
As I mentioned in a previous post. I used to do the Real Secrets version, and I could pass the receipts off as restaurants I visited on a work trip and was planning to expense. But that was 10 years ago. I don’t know that I’d do the same today. If I wanted to read someone’s mind of a word they were “just thinking of,” I’d use the Xeno app in some form.
Okay, do you hear that Craig, Michael, Tim, Murphy’s? Turn your ire towards me. I’m not the biggest fan of multiple-receipt-based-mind-reading. Let me be your common enemy.
Postscript
I received a number of emails saying, “Can you believe Michael Weber was posting on the Cafe under a different name?” (This was uncovered in the EDCeipt thread.)
Yes. There is nothing that makes more sense to me in the world than that. I’m not shocked in the least that Weber would want to get certain things out there but not have to deal with the Cafe riff-raff as himself. That wasn’t as much of an explosive revelation to me as it seemed to be for others. The way that information was revealed on the Cafe thread, I thought it was going to come out that he was the Zodiac killer.
That said, it’s too late for Weber now, but for all the other well-known magicians writing under a pseudonym on the Cafe, check back tomorrow for my post: How to Respond When Your Sock-Puppet Account is Revealed On the Magic Cafe.