In the late 1870s, a magician named Buatier De Kolta was mesmerising audiences in Paris by producing big bunches of paper flowers from an empty roll of paper. Nobody knew how the trick was achieved, until a gust of wind blew one of the flowers on to the floor in front of the stage. A magician in the audience seized it and ran out – De Kolta's trick was soon being performed by many of his rivals.
The story is told by Jacob Loshin, a recent graduate from Yale Law School, in a working paper on how magicians protect their tricks. Such outright thefts would be hard to imagine today because magicians have developed a professional code of conduct to defend their most valuable property: their ideas.
The research bears – albeit obliquely – on an issue that is only going to become more important: intellectual property in a world where more and more of the wealth that is created takes the form of ideas rather than objects. Intellectual property law does not protect magicians' tricks very well, and it does not help much in high fashion or in haute cuisine either – all areas that Loshin describes as a 「negative space」 for intellectual property.
For the fashion industry, a lack of intellectual property protection may not be a problem: the trickle-down of high-end fashion helps create obsolescence and the demand for more high-end fashion. But chefs and conjurors need a little help protecting their ideas. Lacking legal shelter, they resort to professional norms.
Loshin describes the magicians' norms, which encourage the selective sharing of techniques, limit copying and credit the re-discoverer of a long-dormant technique with the same rights as the trick's inventor. The economists Emmanuelle Fauchart and Eric von Hippel report very similar norms for the sharing of recipes among French chefs.
In both cases, the norms are enforced through social pressure that can be very powerful. Loshin describes the case of one company that manufactured tricks that were regarded in the eyes of the profession – although not the law – as proprietary. Magic journals would not accept the company's ads, professional magicians shunned its offerings, and bankruptcy soon followed.
These techniques work because the fraternity of magicians – and chefs – is close-knit. Aspiring chefs work long apprenticeships and rely on word of mouth for their next job. Magic journals are not available at newsagents, and even Prince Charles had to perform an examination before being accepted as a member of The Magic Circle. A magician who steals from another, or reveals secrets not widely known by non-magicians, will not be entrusted with new ideas or recommended by other magicians.
These informal sanctions work well for both chefs and magicians. But they are not perfect. Magicians, in particular, face another problem that the chefs do not. If a chef's recipe is revealed to the world, that does not detract from his reputation, and only other professional chefs are likely to be able to use the information. But if a magician's trick is revealed, his reputation suffers; in fact, a little bit of the mystery is taken away from the entire profession.
In one notorious example, a series of 1990s television shows with the self-explanatory title, Breaking the Magician's Code, won big audiences by revealing the secrets behind classic illusions. One magician complained that the shows were 「peeing in everybody's cornflakes」. But the magicians' social sanctions were powerless to prevent television executives from exposing their secrets, and legal challenges to the programme did not succeed.
Loshin's work is a reminder of how idiosyncratic intellectual property rights can be. Idiosyncrasy is not easy for economists to deal with, but if we want to understand the intangible economy of ideas, it's a trick we shall have to master.
19世紀70年代晚期，一位名為比阿捷•德•科爾陶(Buatier De Kolta)的魔術師在巴黎表演魔術，從一卷空紙卷中變出大束紙花，令觀眾目瞪口呆。直到一陣疾風將其中一朵紙花吹到舞臺前面的地板上，才有人知道這個戲法是怎麼變出來的。觀眾中的一位魔術師抓住它，然後跑開了——德•科爾陶的許多競爭對手很快就開始表演他的戲法了。
這個故事是最近剛從耶魯大學法學院(Yale Law School)畢業的雅各布•洛辛(Jacob Loshin)在一篇關於魔術師如何保護他們戲法的論文中講述的。這種公然的盜竊行為在今天是難以想像的，因為魔術師們已經建立了一套職業行為準則，以保護他們最寶貴的財產：創意。
這篇研究論文瞄準了(儘管是間接地)一個只會變得更加重要的問題：智慧財產權——在如今這個世界上，越來越多的財富以創意、而非實物的形式被創造出來。智慧財產權法律並不能很好地保護魔術師的戲法，在高級時裝和高級烹飪領域也作用不大——洛辛將所有這些領域都稱為智慧財產權的「負領域」。
對時尚行業而言，缺乏智慧財產權保護可能不是問題：高端時裝逐漸普及，有助於帶來淘汰，使人們產生對更高端時裝的需求。但廚師和魔術師需要一點幫助，來保護他們的創意。在缺乏法律保護的情況下，他們訴諸於職業規範。
洛辛描述了魔術師的職業規範，即鼓勵有選擇的分享技巧、限制抄襲並向重新發現失傳已久的技巧的人給予與其發明者同等的榮譽。經濟學家埃馬努埃萊•福沙爾(Emmanuelle Fauchart)和埃裡克•馮•希普爾(Eric von Hippel)指出，法國廚師在分享菜譜方面也遵循類似的規範。
在兩個例子中，這些規範通過可能非常強大的社會壓力得以實行。洛辛描述了一家公司的例子，在同行的眼中，該公司創作的戲法歸別人所有，儘管這並不違法。但魔術雜誌不接受該公司的廣告，專業魔術師不採用它提供的魔術，很快這家公司就破產了。
這些技巧奏效的原因在於，魔術師——以及廚師——之間的同行感情非常緊密。有志向的廚師要當很長時間的學徒，然後依靠口碑找到下一份工作。魔術雜誌在報紙雜誌經銷商那裡買不到，即使是查爾斯王子(Prince Charles)也必須在完成一項考試後，才能被吸納為魔術圈(The Magic Circle)的成員。如果一位魔術師從別人那裡偷取技巧，或者將不為外行廣泛知曉的秘訣洩露出去，其他魔術師就不會將新創意告訴他或者推薦他。
這些非正式的制裁對廚師和魔術師都非常有效。但它們並不完美。尤其是魔術師，他們面臨另一個廚師沒有面臨的問題。如果一位廚師的菜譜洩漏了出去(這並不損害他的名譽)，只有其它專業廚師才會使用該信息。但如果一位魔術師的戲法洩漏了出去，他的名譽就會受損;實際上，整個魔術界的神秘感就會有所降低。
舉一個有名的例子。上世紀90年代，一部片名不言而喻的電視系列節目——《破譯魔術師的密碼》(Breaking the Magician's Code)——為人們揭開經典假象背後的秘密，因而吸引了大量觀眾。一位魔術師抱怨稱，這些節目是在「窺探隱私」。但魔術師的社會制裁對電視製作人毫無作用，並未阻止他們揭露魔術師的秘密，魔術界對該節目提起法律訴訟也沒有勝訴。
洛辛的論文提醒人們，智慧財產權可以是多麼特殊。經濟學家不太容易應對特殊情況，但如果我們想要理解無形的創意經濟，這是一個我們必須掌握的戲法。