There’s a war being waged in the dark corners of the internet. On
one side are kleptomaniac pirates hiding in secret communities.
On the other side is the law.
For most people, piracy is a simple affair: Movie streaming
sites, dubious music blogs — maybe a quick trip to The Pirate Bay
if they’re feeling adventurous.
But beneath the surface lies a hidden network of “trackers”,
invite-only sites with staggering libraries and stringent
invite-only entry requirements. And they’re engaged in a constant
game of cat-and-mouse with law enforcement.
In November 2016, What.CD — a legendary music-sharing site —
closed its doors after a raid by the French authorities. It
came on the heels of
a similar bust of Blackcat Games, a private tracker for
games, and
the closure of ScienceHD, another tracker that was dedicated
to e-learning materials and documentaries.
In the wake of What.CD’s abrupt shutdown, multiple other sites
have quietly disappeared — some temporarily, some permanently.
“It hasn’t been a good year for private trackers, lots shutting
down,” a veteran member of the community told me. “With what.cd
gone, things are more uncertain than ever.”
The names of these sites mean nothing to ordinary people — but
their collections are often mammoth, sometimes outstripping legal
sites, and with rare content that can’t be found anywhere else on
the web. What.CD was,
a Reddit user lamented after its closure, “the Library of
Alexandria for music. Between the list of music and formats, to
the collages, the top tens, the community interaction … What.CD
was the pinnacle of music collection.”
What.CD may now be gone, but these private sites — trackers —
still exist for just about everything. Pick a hobby, an interest,
and there’s probably a private tracker dedicated to it. “Rule 34”
is an old internet adage that if something exists, there’s porn
of it. Well, there’s probably also a private tracker for it.
But one website has a reputation — even among private trackers —
for extreme secrecy and exclusivity. It’s called Art of
Misdirection. Its focus? Magic.
It’s “possibly the most difficult tracker to join,” the veteran
torrent user said. “Considering you have to be a magician to be a
member.”
So naturally, I set out to try and get in — and uncovered a
winding tale of angry magicians, warring rivals, FBI scares, and
an incredibly loyal, decade-old internet community.
Many sources Business Insider spoke to were (understandably)
reluctant to speak on the record. Some names have been
changed.
‘The most closed site in the world’
The
theatre at the London headquarters of The Magic
Circle.
The
Magic Circle
Magic is famously secretive. Magicians jealously guard their
tricks and secrets, working to maintain an aura of mystique
around the pursuit. It’s part theatrics, and part commercial
necessity: Their livelihood requires them to bamboozle and
bedazzle their audiences with seemingly impossible feats.
Organisations like the Magic Circle exist in the real world where
magicians can interact with their peers and enjoy the benefits of
community — provided they pass rigorous tests and auditions to
prove their magical skill,
and swear not to reveal the secrets of magic. Art of
Misdirection (AOM) is — arguably — a virtual version of these.
It has the secrecy, it has the fraternity, it has the grueling
entry tests to prove your magical abilities — but it’s also
totally illegal.
From scans of rare old books on magic to videos demonstrating the
inner workings of tricks, from PDFs to recordings of talks and
panels by magicians that can’t be found anywhere else — if it’s
digital and magical, it’s probably on there, and carefully
guarded.
I’ve known about the site, by reputation alone, for years. In
some piracy circles (even those with nothing to do with magic),
it is infamous for its secrecy, and its incredibly high barriers
to entry.
A
screenshot of a magic torrent tracker shared by Tony Sakich..
(It’s not clear whether this is an old screenshot of Art of
Misdirection or not.)
Tony
Sakich/Medium
It is “the most closed site in the world”
a user of torrent forum Torrent Invite said in 2011.
“The art of misdirection easily takes the crown as the hardest
tracker to get in,”
said one Reddit user.
Another user added: “They don’t like publicity, and the 600+
members there never step out of line.”
Earlier this year, my curiosity burning, I decided to try and
find out more. My first port of call was a
Medium post written by Tony Sakich, an employee at digital
currency startup Augur.
His article — the only one on the internet that discusses AOM —
is sparse on details. It included the barest of descriptions, a
screenshot of uncertain origins, and a link to an old blog post
criticising the site.
Sakich isn’t a member of Art of Misdirection, but he has
first-hand experience of private trackers: He’s a member of one
dedicated to American pro-wrestling.
“There’s decades of tapes of every territory and region having
weekly TV, so the archives is ridiculous … if I was 10 years
old and I knew this much out there existed I would’ve absolutely
lost my mind,” he said.
“It has a lot of very old professional wrestling, Memphis stuff
from the Eighties … things you’re never going to find on any
other platform.”
‘Torrents’? ‘Trackers’? A brief introduction
Torrents, a format that debuted back in 2001, turned traditional
downloading on its head. Rather than receiving a file from a
single, central source, the sought-after data is sourced from a
decentralised swarm of users.
You download an app or movie from a hundred different users at
once — all of them sending different parts of it to you, even as
you automatically send the parts you’ve already downloaded to
other users in the swarm with an incomplete version of the file.
The format has plenty of legitimate uses — but its development
also revolutionised piracy.
Public, easy-to-use search engines like The Pirate Bay sprung up.
And alongside them, private trackers proliferated, catering for
all manner of niche interests, from wrestling to magic. They will
frequently get copyrighted content before it surfaces anywhere on
the public web — often sourcing it from
the ultra-exclusive “Scene.”
There’s a strange irony to the world of private trackers. The
content is often stolen with no regard for the rights-holders —
but users still fiercely guard it, only selectively admitting new
members, forcing them to contribute, and even banning people who
share the community’s files more widely.
The login page for Art of
Misdirection. Minimalist.
Art of
Misdirection.
Inside Art of Misdirection: Exclusive content and intense secrecy
One lead in my hunt was invaluable: An ancient membership list,
leaked by a disgruntled member to an anti-piracy magician who
once investigated the site and its founder.
I emailed the 700-odd members on it — and the responses, a
mixture of confusion and caution, indicated just how closely the
community guards itself.
Harry
Houdini, famed American magician, once made an elephant
disappear.
commons.wikimedia.org
“I’m sorry but AoM is a very exclusive site and I think we are
like around 600 members with the ‘you do not talk about AoM’
(kinda like fight club) attitude,” one user said. “So I have to
ask, how did you come over my information? It feels kinda fishy
since you know, it’s really hard to get in there unless you are
like David Copperfield.”
“The site in question is as exclusive as it is shrouded in
secrecy. Or as some may say – security through obscurity,” said
another.
So what’s actually on Art of Misdirection? Just about everything
a magician could want.
“The selection was out of this world, you could literally find
almost anything that you wanted, I got some stuff that I could
realistically learn or wanted to learn and of course some cool
things that blew my mind,” said a former member.
“I was at my brothers graduation at college and I started doing
magic at the party,” another former member recalled. “This guy
comes up to me and says ‘I’ve got the best trick for you … you
can never find it, it’s so unique, it’s so rare.’ And it’s this
trick dealing with aces, and I was like ‘No, I can find it.’ ‘No
you can’t.’ And I’m like ‘as a matter of fact I can.’
“It turned into this really big argument and this dare. And I
went home, I went online, I found it, I downloaded it from AOM, I
learned it that night, and the next day I went and performed it.”
A great deal of magical performances are reliant on props, from
cards and animals to chains and scarfs, from elaborate costumes
and theatrical tools to unique, arcane devices. These, of course
aren’t shareable digitally. But plenty is — books, videos, PDFs,
book scans, — and it’s all available on Art of Misdirection.
An
old screenshot shared by Tim Ellis, either of Art of Misdirection
or its rival Art of Misdirection Killer. (AOMK copied AOM’s
look.)
Tim
Ellis
Balloons, Bizarre, Cards, Coins, Juggling, Levitation, Mentalism,
Money, Rope, History, Lecture Notes, and “Rare”
are just some of the many categories available to download.
Not everything is pirated — and some of the content can’t be
found anywhere else, either lost in the sands of time or created
exclusively for AOM members.
“There are more recent video tutorials but also new and old books
that are hard/impossible to find in print even if you wanted to
buy them legitimately,” Lucy, a current member, said.
“Some videos are from conferences or talks where there is no
video to buy,” they added.”There’s even ebooks that are written
by members and only shared within AoM.”
On the community side, discussion — unsurprisingly — revolves
around magic. “People talk about magic tricks, sleight of hand,
stories/patter, gimmicks, rare finds, feedback for their own
ideas etc.”
“It was pretty tightknit,” said Peter, a former member who spent
time working on an original video to share with the community.
“Not only did they have videos, they had contests all the time
trying to invent new tricks, who did the best tricks” — with
prizes including legitimate copies of books, DVDs, and downloads.
The site has aggressively kept its numbers small and community
tight — a strategy it has pursued since the beginning. “We chose
quality over quantity,” an admin said in an old email to users.
To get in you have to be invited by a member — and even then,
site staff and members will vote on admitting you, and you have
to pass a test to prove your skill as a magician. Some former
members even recalled a video audition — creating video proof of
your magical skills.
Back in 2008, the site accidentally made sign-ups open to
everyone — a mistake it quickly rectified,
banning anyone who signed up while it was open. At the time,
it
had around 900 members. In 2010, it
was apparently 630.
In 2010, a user on a public forum identifying themselves as the
admin “jacqueline” discussed the site’s strict criteria for
admitting new members: “Only the most high ranked members (icons)
can invite members in. Currently there are only 12 icons. And as
their recommendations could effect their status, they hardly
bring in new members. The current policy is to reduce the amount
of members even more. AOM focuses on professionals only. Dont get
fooled by invite offers on internet (there are none) or people
that pretend to sell accounts. Trading or selling accounts is
against the site policy so traded or sold accounts will be
banned.”
Today, the site has under 500 members, according to Lucy. “I
definitely shouldn’t be talking about it,” they said. “The nature
of magic is secrets.”
Vigilante magicians once set out to kill Art of Misdirection
Tim Ellis.
Tim
Ellis
Magic, for all its secrecy and theatrics, is like any other
interest: Alongside pirates, there are content creators furious
at the illegal copying of their work — and some have set out to
destroy Art of Misdirection.
“It’s something we, as magicians who love and respect our art,
MUST take a stand against,”
Australian magician Tim Ellis wrote in a blog entry attacking AOM
in 2009. “Magicians might be professional liars, but they
should not be thieves!”
Ellis, along with fellow magician James Clark, are not fond of
magical piracy. They have worked hard to try and stomp it out —
going after multiple sites alongside AOM for allegedly hosting
copyrighted material, and even reporting them to the FBI. (It was
Clark who provided me with the leaked member list.)
“James and I had been able to convince the owner of one site …
that sharing DVDs illegally was not the best way to progress the
art of magic (a visit to his home by the FBI helped — especially
as he was a college kid still living with his parents) and [he]
deleted that section of his site and continues to operate as a
magic community forum for younger magicians,” Ellis said in a
message. (The owner of that site did not respond to Business
Insider’s emails.)
“In the magic community — the performers and creators and
historians and archivists and lecturers and theorists’ (etc),”
attitudes to Art of Misdirection “range from disgust to
dismissal,” he continued.
Others are less quick to attack magical piracy than Ellis. “Now I
have money it’s easy for me to say it’s bad and you shouldn’t do
it,” said Edmund, a semi-professional magician and former AOM
member. “I couldn’t have got my start without [piracy].”
An
old poster advertising the magician Jean Eugène
Robert-Houdin.
Harry
Houdini/Wikimedia Commons
A short history of Art of Misdirection
The earliest history of Art of Misdirection is murky.
“BEFORE there was an AOM, or an AOMK there was a magic torrent
site called Filefight run by Zeron, and Lenaud, and before there
was even a Filefight, Zeron, or Lenaud,”
a user posted on a forum in 2010. “THERE was my magic hub,
and the Bitme Tracker, and another magic torrent site i ran
before all this AOM crap.”
A
screenshot of Art of Misdirection Killer shared by Tim Ellis on
his blog.
Tim
Ellis
Whatever the precise chronology and its predecessors, Art of
Misdirection launched around 2007. A rival site — Art of
Misdirection Killer (AOMK) — was subsequently established, and
frequented largely by users who were unable to get into the main
AOM.
Its founder, “Cheeky,” established it at least in part because of
philosophical differences with AOM and its secretive nature —
arguing that the content should be shared more widely, Edmund
said.
“He was extremely public about making sure everyone knew he was
an ex-member … and because he disagreed with their attempts at
being so exclusive that he was making this AOMK site,” he said.
“He was weird. He even went to the extent of actually cloning the
site so it looked the same, and all this kind of stuff. It was
strange.”
“AOMK was infiltrating, stealing our stuff, releasing bad
copies,” said Peter.
At times hackers targeted AOM, and its users’ accounts. And once
the site went down unexpectedly — prompting fears that it had
been raided by the FBI, which rival sites tried to use to
persuade users to sign up elsewhere. (The culprit was a lack of
communication over a planned change of hosting companies.)
It’s not clear who runs Art of Misdirection today. Clark says
that when he began investigating the site, it was registered to a
man from Maplewood, Minnesota. After being confronted, the man
apparently admitted to creating the site but for someone else,
and that “he has nothing to do with the site.”
The site’s WHOIS registration data is now anonymised, and the
Minnesotan did not respond to Business Insider’s request for
comment. Messages sent to other email addresses associated with
Art of Misdirection’s admins were also not replied to.
The ethics of magical piracy
Magic is perhaps uniquely vulnerable to piracy. The development
of new tricks is intensely time-consuming and expensive — and the
small community means creators are forced to sell at relatively
high prices, and will acutely feel the effects of people opting
to download their content illegally.
“Some hate [Art of Misdirection] and wish it would go away,
others think it’s not worth even thinking about,” Ellis told me.
“Universally negative. In the small section of people who THINK
they are part of the magic community (secret collectors who don’t
wish to pay the creators for their work and believe all IP should
be free) — they love it.”
“There’s two reputations,” Edmund said. “There’s the reputation
among magicians — as in, working magicians — and then there’s the
reputation among the magic pirates. So there’s two separate
communities there … I suspect the overlap of magicians who are
also part of these communities is much higher than we like to
admit. I think there’s a lot of working magicians who are on
these sites as well.”
They added: “[Somebody] made a fake website and asked people to
register, purely for the purpose of then publishing the email
address of everybody who registered. And in that list there was
quite a few professionals. And a lot of those professionals said
‘oh no, I only registered to make sure my stuff wasn’t being
uploaded,’ and all that kind of stuff. But I don’t believe it.”
But some argue that Art of Misdirection is more than just a hub
for copyright infringement. “I understand magic can hurt
legitimate businesses, but this is more of a small online
community,” Lucy, a current member, said. “Sharing magic and
secrets amongst each other. It’s not a ‘pirate bay’ for magic.”
“If you’re in a magic community … a physical group, a
magicians’ brotherhood or something like that, where you can get
together with a bunch of people, share tricks, books, videos,
it’s just a digital version of that,” said Peter. “Yeah it’s
piracy, yeah they’re technically stealing from people … but
it’s almost no different to a group of people getting together in
a physical area.”
There’s now a new threat to magic: Counterfeiting
A
counterfeit version of a small magic trick that lets you appear
to cut through a ring without damaging it.
Tim
Ellis
One problem facing Art of Misdirection is that magic isn’t as
easy to pirate than it used to be.
“Modern magicians have found other ways to monetise their
effects,” said Edmund. “They tend to do a lot more lectures that
before.”
And tricks are increasingly being sold with physical apparatus —
something which is impossible to share online. “Having the DVD
without the gimmicks or tools or trick or anything that goes with
it doesn’t do much, if that makes sense. More people are
distributing smarter effects now, so when you buy it you get the
DVD or booklet, plus you get the apparatus itself. You can’t
pirate the apparatus.”
But this move to the physical has had an unintended effect:
Making magic tricks vulnerable to counterfeiters.
“Not only have we been plagued by manufacturers reverse
engineering magic tricks then having them mass produced cheaply
in China — they didn’t even bother changing the name of the trick
any more or making it look a bit different – they cloned it,”
Ellis said. “So popular tricks that sell for $60 (because of
years of research and development) are on sale online for $8 and
it looks exactly like the real thing. Some manufacturers even use
the same ad copy or video promo.”
Ellis launched a site, MagicFakers, to try and
track the issue — but ultimately gave up. “It’s got so bad I no
longer update MagicFakers because I was getting 10 to 20 new
‘copies’ each day.”
The internet has revolutionised magic — for both good and bad
Peter argued that piracy — for all the threat it poses to
magicians’ livelihoods — has helped contribute to the huge
developments in magic in the internet age.
“I think it’s spurred some of the huge interest in magic right
now,” they said. “The rapid evolution it has caused, because
suddenly everyone can see all the methods, all the different
things. I seriously think cardistry as an artform is heavily
influenced by the community, because suddenly people could share
so so much.
They added: “The early nineties had the classic cup-and-balls,
cards, handkerchiefs, parlour magic, and that kind of got boring.
Then suddenly everyone had access to everything, and it made
everyone just rapidly innovate, rapidly constantly change how
magic works — you have the most beautiful stuff.”
But at the same time, that cannot excuse the harm it causes
creators.
Ultimately, my hunt for Art of Misdirection was only partially
successful. I didn’t manage to get an account, and the exact
contents of AOM’s exclusive library will remain a mystery for
now. But I did get a rare window into an intensely secretive
community, and heard first-hand how people the world over,
whether musicians or magicians, battle with exactly the same
issues — piracy and exclusivity, morality and rivalry.
For Edmund, at least, the allure and mystery of magic — like Art
of Misdirection itself — has outgrown the reality. “Honestly,
there’s really not many secrets,” they said. With a bit of
technical know-how, “you can work out practically anything else.”
“The secrets are an empty chest.”
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