Imagine next the cheap-ink newspaper report: "the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons...".
What are these mysterious legal reasons, which have so much power over what we see, hear, or read?
Well, legal reasons do not actually exist, at least not by themselves.
Legal reasons is - or should be - a simple descriptive term. Any time this phrase is used, it should be possible to be more precise.
This precision should both in terms of (1) what law (libel, copyright, contempt of court, and so on) and (2) what legal instrument (statute, contractual obligation, court order, and so on).
Any person who mentions legal reasons who cannot also state what law and what legal instrument is either ill-informed or misleading you and others.
However, the law does have this mystique.
The mystique is well portrayed in literature. In Kafka's The Trial, poor Josef K never finds out what is going on; and in Bleak House, Charles Dickens depicts Jarndyce v Jarndyce as an essentially incomprehensible case. In both cases (literally), the application of law has drastic personal consequences, but it cannot be understood.
When many hear the phrase for legal reasons they just nod and defer.
I was prompted into thinking about this by Derren Brown's seeming prediction of the National Lottery results last week. See it here.
Insofar as this daft exercise really needs a rational explanation - and as the forecast was not independently verified before the prize draw, almost any explanation is more sensible than the one eventually offered by Brown - see the fine analysis by Poel James here.
However, what interested me is how Brown used law and legal reasons as part of the various misdirections to throw the audience.
I set some of these out below in order with a comment on each one; my timings are against the YouTube video here.
(In doing this, I am not saying I am an expert in current national lottery law, but I am aware of the general statutory/licence/contract regime in which the broadcasts take place.)
0:38 "I've done nothing illegal..."
This sows the legality seed. We are all sure it is correct, and so we begin to accept what he says about law to be correct.
0:46 "...and for security reasons..."
Which are of course unspecified; there is no reason why security reasons dictate that only him and two cameramen are present. (Indeed, there is the question of who put the balls there in the first place...)
But this is so far plausible and our trust is still in place.
0:59 "We can't show more than a couple of minutes of the BBC, for legal reasons..."
This is legally plausible; not least that broadcasting BBC on Channel 4 would probably be a copyright infringement unless there was a licence. It could also be a tortious interference of the contractual relationship between the BBC and Camelot allowing BBC exclusive rights to broadcast the result (in other words, a third party can be sued if he/she stops two others performing a contract between them).
1:15 "We've spoken to Camelot, we've had a meeting with Camelot..."
This is all plausible detail; and note the use of the inclusive we.
1:23 "..the BBC have a legal right to announce the lottery numbers first, before anybody else does..."
This is undoubtedly correct, in that the contract between BBC and Camelot would have such an exclusivity provision. However, this contract would not bind Brown.
1:27 "...so, um, because of that I can't show you the numbers until just after the lottery has been announced, if that makes sense."
This is, in my view, completely wrong. But this is the statement which all the plausible mentions of law have led up to. And so the viewer is ready to accept it.
There is actually no legal restriction on him whatsoever broadcasting a forecast (just as there is no legal restriction on anyone playing the lottery making a forecast).
Brown is simply not announcing the numbers, unless of course he knew the numbers in advance (ie, that the lottery was rigged).
There was no simply legal reason for Brown not to provide his lottery forecast before the draw.
Note here how Brown's hesitancy ("...um...if that makes sense") cloaks this legally incorrect statement.
3:22 "Again, I've done nothing illegal..."
Again, this is surely correct and so provides our final reassurance.
Without the "legal" explanation for the lack of prior forecast, Brown's exercise would have been even less convincing; indeed it would have missed its essential premise.
He has of course resorted to legal reasons before in his misdirections; in the famous Russian Roulette routine he made out that British gun laws meant he had to go to Jersey (where it was, er, also unlawful).
Derren Brown is a master of misdirection; but he is also a graduate of law - he read Law and German at Bristol University. More than anyone - perhaps other than the great jury advocates at the criminal and libel bar - he knows how law and misdirection can be effectively mixed.
I would say that Derren Brown is thereby a great loss to the legal profession; but I cannot (for legal reasons).
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6 comments:
I was suspicious of the "legal reasons" line at the time, but couldn't really tell, so it's nice to have some light shed on that.
The thing is, I don't think I'd have minded all that sort of bluster which surrounded the trick, if I thought he'd actually been honest in his reveal on the Friday show. It's pretty clear it was a trick, after all, and I think using some misdirection like this which doesn't technically stand up to scrutiny would be okay, if it's not something he's then going to stand by when it gets to the "really and honestly how it all happened" bit.
It seems almost certain that the reason he couldn't show us the "prediction" before the draw was that there was no prediction before the draw. So he needed to come up with some patter to work around that, which is fine. But I prefer when magicians are at least honest about their dishonesty, and that's why I felt let down by Derren here.
Not being a lawyer but keen fan of magic tricks, Derren Brown's "I am not allowed to show my *prediction* before the actual *results*" stunt was quite obvious to me.
I also wonder how legally "tight" his revelations in the last five minutes on Friday's show were, where he basically said: "There is a third option, manipulating the draw, and this is what one would have to do... but this is only in theory, as it would be illegal, and I for sure have not done this, if you ask me".
*If* he had done it, I would see him on quite shaky legal grounds. What do you think?
To be clear: I doubt he has manipulated the draw, but this option still serves a better explanation as the prediction method with 24 people doing automatic writing, so he made the main point of his show without calling it by its proper name (Occam's Razor).
One has only to "shave" one more time, disregard the manipulation option, and arrive back at the quite boring but most likely true "it was a camera trick".
Lmao very good. He really is a master of misdirection. His Friday show may have disappointed a lot of people, but it also sent many others off in all sorts of directions. Loads who think the 'fixing' explanation he glossed over was what really happened. This is backed up by stuff he said and footage he showed to the studio audience - 'secret' footage which was never broadcast. Add to the mix that it's like a whole load of people are going to get into groups now and try his method, probably leading to one of them winning and 'proving' that Derren was telling the truth... Etc etc. Clever and interesting, if a bit annoying.
Very good analysis of the "legal reasons". Thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
However, I think it is important to not "read too much" into this whole lottery prediction thing. The show was good entertainment and no doubt Derren Brown is a great entertainer. It was clear that some trickery was involved because the reward of actually winning the lottery far outweighs putting on a good show.
I guess Mr Brown's much controversial automatic writing method would be vindicated if we see a statistically significant increase in the incidence of lottery winners in the next couple of years.
I doubt it tho...
And I am determined to be standing when he broadcasts his subliminal ad next week.
It's highly likely that there would have been meetings, or other communication, between lawyers representing Mr Brown and Channel 4, and those representing Camelot and the BBC, long before this was broadcast, if only to obtain the agreement of all parties.
"...so, um, because of that I can't show you the numbers until just after the lottery has been announced, if that makes sense."
I believe that he could certainly show his *predictions* of what the lottery numbers might be, before the live draw. However, this is really simple misdirection. Like everyone else, Mr Brown did not know the winning numbers until he saw the draw live on TV.
All that remained was to replace the blank balls on the stand with ones marked with the winning numbers, without his television audience being aware of it.
And yes, I do know how this trick was performed.
Hey DBH,
The whole point of subliminal is that you would [or should] not know when it is being done and no doubt he has a sub in there to get you to sit to start with. I have read his work book and watched his shows a few times and through that you can usually understand his mis direction and how he gets you to choose stuff etc. The lottery trick though is a very very impressive trick and has had the result required which is that everyone in the UK will watch his other shows over the next few weeks.
I find him fascinating and even though i catch him mis pronouncing the words and doing a lot of visual subliminal gestures etc through his shows he is still entertaining.
ps : his trick next week wont work for everyone by the way...probably only those that can be hypnotised in around 5 words lol [sit down on the sofa!!!]
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