Comedians Self-Regulate Joke Stealing

Over at Slate‘s
interesting “Humor Code” series, the latest entry asks “who
owns a joke?” And can you sue over a stolen joke? Peter
McGraw and Joel Warner cover some of the history of
joke-stealing, from Milton Berle’s bit about why someone else would
sleep with his wife that originated in a 4th century joke book to
the stuff about Carlos
Mencia.

The short answer is no one owns the idea of mocking something,
so you can’t really sue over a joke that’s worded differently. And
if you wanted to, it’d be expensive. The authors look at the work
of two legal scholars, Dotan Oliar and Christopher Sprigman, who
probed the recourse comedians had for joke theft in the wake of the
Mencia dust-up in 2007 and uncovered an informal set of rules

comedians followed:

Those who don’t follow the rules can face escalating
repercussions. First they’re subjected to badmouthing; then they
get blacklisted from clubs. Finally, if the unacceptable behavior
continues, it’s understood that things might get physical. While
none of the comics Oliar and Sprigman interviewed admitted to
participating in or witnessing fights over stolen jokes, many had
heard stories, and they accepted such violence as a possible, if
remote, outcome. As one comedian told the researchers, ” … the only
copyright protection you have is a quick uppercut.”

Far from being dismayed by this extralegal system, [Dotan] Oliar
and [Christopher] Sprigman came away impressed by the comedians’
informal arrangement. “They have managed to put together a
community project that requires a pretty high-level amount of group
coordination,” says Sprigman. It’s a lot better than the
joke-stealing free-for-all of Berle’s era. And it’s hard to imagine
a more formal joke protection system, involving copyright filings
and other legal procedures, working well in a world where comics
are constantly generating and tweaking new material. In fact,
Sprigman thinks this joke-stealing code could work for other
industries struggling with how to balance creativity and copyright
issues, including the music and tech industries. They should borrow
it.

You don’t need there to be a law, after all.

h/t invisible furry hand