Is it legal to copy a magic trick?
Here is an interesting article about why it is nearly impossible to copyright a magic trick. It is the English master magician and lintellectual rights lawyer Guy Hollingworth. If you have never seen his torn and restored card you can also view it on that page.
He have some interesting point:
“An idea alone cannot be covered by law, and so simply inviting someone to choose a card, for example, and then making it appear in a wallet, is not something the law can or will protect, says Hollingworth.”
He continues
“A scripted presentation of a trick however, would amount to a “literary work” in which copyright exists and unscrupulous competitors could be sued for breach of it. But this still does not protect the trick per se - merely the presentation of it.”
But if you really want to patent a trick then has to be relatively detailed. The more flesh that is put on the bones of the basic trick, the more chance there is that it can be protected by the law of designs, patents and copyright.