On Beck’s advice, Houdini made escapes a central part of his act. He finally caught a break in 1899, when vaudeville impresario Martin Beck booked him on a tour of the United States and Europe. Houdini struggled during his early years in show business and considered calling it quits and opening a magic school. Houdini would be busily minting his own NFTs if he were alive today.Getty Images / Universal History Archive / UIG
The scripts of Houdini’s playlets are now held within the Reader’s Collection of the Library of Congress Copyright Office Drama Deposits, but the lesson for those who wish to make their mark on the world is clear: it is not enough to innovate the art, but also to innovate the systems that enable artists to profit from their own IP. Dramatic compositions have been eligible for copyright protection since 1856, and Houdini’s approach ensured that he had legal grounds to protect his legacy - a practice which he pursued aggressively, according to historic rumor. The Chinese Water Torture Cell was one of three famous illusions that the Hungarian immigrant and magician registered as “playlets,” or short plays, with the US Copyright Office between 19. He continued to perform this signature escape until his death in 1926, and though several movies depict him dying in the torture cell, it had nothing to do with his demise in actuality. Only then was he ready to take the act into a public performance, debuting the escape at the Circus Busch in Berlin, Germany, on September 21, 1912.
Before taking the trick public in 1912, Houdini first performed the escape for a single-person audience in the guise of a one-act play he called Houdini Upside Down! He then copyrighted the play, thus securing his ownership of the trick contained therein. So for the Chinese Water Torture Cell, he took a new approach. As Houdini learned from a previous trick, called the Milk Can Escape, owning a patent for a trick did little to stop imitators from stealing his thunder.
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