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Can You Copyright a Joke? (npr.org)
Reader AnalogDiehard writes: Writer Alex Kaseburg has filed a lawsuit against TBS and Time Warner alleging that jokes recited on the Conan O'Brien show were stolen from his blog shortly after they were published. The case gets heard in August and could create new protections in a legal forum in which there is little precedent or clear definition in what defines a joke as "original" and subject to legal protection, especially in an industry where theft of humor occurs on a regular basis. But the outcome of any judicial decision opens a big can of worms and raises serious questions: Will YouTube videos get shut down from DMCA notices citing copyrighted jokes? Will compliance staff have to be retained to ensure that their magazine or news article, TV show, movie, or broadway act is not infringing on copyrighted jokes? Will copyrights on jokes get near-perpetual protection like the controversial Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act? Will people be able to recite limericks without fear of infringing? Will tyrannical politicians copyright critical jokes to oppress freedom of speech? Will legal cases be filed arguing that a comedian's joke(s) bears too much similarity to a copyrighted joke recited decades ago? Will girl scouts be free to tell copyright jokes around the campfire?
I tried to say I was a Slashdot moderator and got chewed out for it.
No
Similarly, you can't Copyright a word, or a string of words. You can trademark a company name, but I can tell jokes about your Company all day long and not violate your trademark law. You can copyright very long strings of words as complete thoughts, but even then I can quote you all I like as long as I give credit.
If one could copyright a joke, countless comedians would have no possibility of a career. Jokes are remade over and over and over, in addition to being simply stolen between acts. (Intentionally avoiding digs at comedians known to steal other people's jokes.)
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
So you're saying copyright is a joke?
...Please!
(c) 1985-2017 Microsoft Corp. All Rights Reserved.
If you can copyright jokes...
or will end up owing a ton of money to people that are actually funny.
someone can't take a joke.
Dick stuck in ceiling fan.
#DeleteFacebook
Zwei peanuts were walking down the strasse. One was assaulted... peanut.
#DeleteChrome
Probably not. This feels similar to the copyright situation surrounding recipes.
You can't copyright a recipe. You can copyright a particular description of a recipe, which is why many recipes come with flowery descriptions and pretty pictures. Those can be copyrighted. But the thing itself, the list of instructions, cannot be.
By the same token, it'd be unsurprising if the courts found that particular wordings or diagrams can be copyrighted, but the joke itself -- the end product -- cannot be copyrighted.
Conan isn't a hack, he's genuinely funny (IMHO). This is probably coincidental. Somewhat related (from Zach Wiener): An Open Letter to Sarah Silverman
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Where Conan and his "staff" walked away with 45 Million dollars for "doing nothing". Just pure negotiations about a cancellation of a contract. And another 1.5million$ score: http://www.nydailynews.com/ent...
And we could go on, Conan...he's in love with the money, and at best - a very mediocre comedian.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
If the blog was, indeed, the source of some of the jokes aired by the show, Mr. Kaseburg was wronged and is entitled to damages.
This is bullshit. First of all, a "tyrannical politician" can usually oppress you directly — no need to have the critical joke played and replayed during the civil court proceedings and entered into public records.
Second, parody and satire (especially against politician) are exempt from copyright laws to begin with...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I mean, what would this have meant for the career of Milton Berle?
Unfortunately, though I can already imagine all sorts of bad scenarios that will come about from granting jokes copyright protections .... I'm not sure there's a strong argument to prevent the lawyers from hopping aboard this gravy train?
A professional comedian is essentially paid to deliver jokes and skits that make an audience laugh. In most cases, this is done with memorized lines, scripted and honed over time. In many situations (like late night TV), the host doing a bit of stand-up comedy as part of the show is using jokes purchased from writers who make the material for them.
So in that sense, yes - jokes have monetary value and it's customary to pay people to provide them for you.
Obviously, the DELIVERY of the lines is also a part of what makes a comedian "good" (and worth paying to see). But the same could be said for musical performances. We still extend copyright protection to songs, despite the fact that individual artists bring something unique when they perform them.
If someone would copyright the word "copyright", than we don't need to hear about this stuff anymore.
Let's just crank it all the way up on this intellectual property stuff. Sue everyone, nobody makes any money, and everyone is afraid to even hum a tune while driving. Only then will average people actually give a shit about copyright, patent and trademark reform.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If his twitter is any indication, I'm not sure what decent material there was to steal.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Are jokes covered by copyrights? The answer is a resounding "yes", because they are "works of authorship" covered by the USC.
Can you "copyright" one? That's nonsensical, because the rights begin the moment the joke is told or written down. The author of a joke doesn't need to apply anywhere to get copyrights.
Did O'Brien infringe Mr. Kaseburg's copyrights? Well, perhaps, but proving that O'Brien got his material from Kaseburg might be difficult. Proving similarity isn't enough, because O'Brien could have come up with the jokes himself, or gotten permission from someone else that came up with the jokes. Kaseburg would have to prove the value of those jokes, which could be much less than his costs of prosecuting a law suit in federal court, even if he were awarded lawyer fees.
There's a major sea change going on to a much, much more pro-corporate environment. One of America's biggest products is IP so it's not surprising to see stronger copyright law. As our courts get stacked with more and more pro-corp appointees expect to see changes.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
But I offended the Beavis and Butthead crowd earlier today.
When will Americans come to their senses and realize this failed experiment that is 'copyright' and 'intellectual property' is a disaster? When at first it only regulated the printing of books, which required expensive equipment to produce, it KINDA made sense, mostly only to the big publishers but the regular people didn't care that much so the politicians made copyright a law. Now that it has logically been extended to all kinds of things, code, tv shows, movies, and now jokes, and the length of copyright is 150 years + the life of the author i think its becoming absurdly clear that Copyright law is at its very core a violation of the freedom of speech. It does not encourage innovation. It does not protect the jobs of artists or creators. It does nothing but put more money in the pockets of lawers and giant corporations with the money to buy, and legally maintain and defend, their copyrights.
A joke, as a verbal utterance, has to contain both an idea, and some form of expression of that idea. The idea is not copyrightable, but the expression certainly is *if it is sufficiently original*, which means it has to be long enough to be non-obvious.
Take the joke, "I just flew in from Cleveland and boy are my arms tired," which was probably funny the first time it was ever used. The idea behind the joke is the confusion between two senses of the verb "to fly". This version joke is such a straightforward and minimal embodiment of that idea that it seems unlikely to me that it could be copyrighted.
Verbal jokes on the other end of length and complexity scales, like the Abbott and Costello "Who's on first" routine seem very likely to me to be copyrightable.
Likewise non-verbal embodiments of a gag may be copyrightable, such as a political cartoon or a physical slapstick. But individual expressive elements are likely too small to be copyrightable. For example if I depict the president as a baby in diapers -- that's been done before, but I'm on safe ground. But if I copy too much about how another cartoonist represents the president's character graphically then I've crossed a line, albeit a fuzzy one.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Who's ther.... [DMCA Takedown notice received]
Have gnu, will travel.
Because that episode was damn funny.
Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z
Just imagine a set of jokes that require you to distribute their English counterpart every time you use it.
It's even funnier in its native Scheme.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
> Like "The Aristocats"? Seems eligible to me.
Nope. The thing about the Aristocrats is that every comic does their own version. The arch of the joke and the last line is the only thing each version shares. The details are unique to the comic.
Copyright protects any original idea. Which brings us to some limitations:
1) You have to prove it is original. Good luck with that, most jokes are derivative. They have to be, because by nature they are short, and people have making jokes for thousands of years.
2) You can't copyright the concept, i.e. the ingredients. Given the shortness of most jokes, that means that relatively minor changes can invalidate the copyright. Delivery alone might be sufficient.
3) Parody is a clear exception, which can be very likely for a joke. Making fun of someone else telling a joke may be "Meta", but it can work.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
That's what the patent office is for.
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
gets charged for felony copyright violation.
Have you noticed that there is no concept of intellectual property in Star Trek and Star Wars? One can argue that IP law is preventing us as a species from making huge technological leaps. Certainly tort law is stifling innovation and preventing Darwin from thinning the herd. Perhaps Shakespeare was right but I won't quote him here lest the estate want a license fee.
Say, the words "President Trump". Suppose I think it's a joke. Can I copyright it as a joke even if it's probably already copyrighted (but not as a joke)?
The judge said this: "[S]imilarities derived from the use of common ideas cannot be protected; otherwise, the first to come up with an idea will corner the market." This is in essence the problem with business process patents. It's why patenting a general idea is bad; like what most process patents are doing.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Does a joke have to be funny or is it just a string of words ? Who determines if it is funny or can you just get in trouble for saying a sentence or 2 that someone else used before you did ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
If you can copyright a dictionary then all derived works would also be copyrighted....?
If you can copyright rounded corners, or particular chip designs or methods, what's so sacred about a joke that would prevent it from being copyrighted? I'd argue it should be easier to copyright art than copyright engineering
But let's not forget that there's an exemption for use in parody.
The real joke was if Conan stole jokes off of a web site, would anyone notice?
For years the answer was no because nobody listened to Conan. Bound to catch up to him sooner or later.