This is the way I heard it.

It's one of the simplest but most devastating illusions of all time.

It's called shadows, and it works like this.

A spotlight is trained on a vase containing a single rose.

The light falls in such a manner that the shadow of the rose

is projected onto a white screen positioned several yards behind it.

The magician then enters the scene with a knife and without speaking

dramatically cuts off the petals from the rose's shadow.

With each cut, the corresponding petals on the real rose magically fall to the ground.

In other words, the illusionist trims a real rose by pruning its shadow.

The effect is stunning and Raymond, the magician who created the now famous

illusion 40 years ago, was standing in a Nevada courtroom trying to pull off an

even harder trick, convincing a US district court judge that magic should be

protected under US copyright law.

It all started a year earlier when Raymond stumbled across a video on YouTube

that featured a magician from Belgium performing his illusion.

Instead of shadows, the Dutchman called it Rose and her shadow.

But any fool could see it was the exact same trick.

A shameless rip-off pure and simple.

Raymond knew that magician's secrets weren't legally protected, but this was just

egregious. Not only was the Dutchman ripping him off artistically,

he was offering to sell the secret over the internet to anyone who paid him

...