Plagiarized Jokes are No Laughing Matter – WriteCheck Blog Post

Last week, something of a false alarm was raised about the idea of Twitter deleting stolen jokes. The very next day, comedy writer Robert “Alex” Kaseberg sued Conan O’Brien and many involved with his show for stealing his jokes from Twitter.

While it’s easy to make fun of lawsuits over stolen jokes, it’s actually going to be a growing problems. Comedy is big business and copyright/plagiarism norms online are starting to clash with long held social norms surrounding humor and jokes.

That, in turn, is my topic this week on the WriteCheck Blog. I take a look at the legal issues surrounding stolen jokes and how the way we’ve shared humor for centuries is suddenly colliding with the business of writing funny Tweets.

In this post I try to answer the following questions:

1. What is going on with the current legal actions being taken over stolen jokes?
2. How are those actions are different than what took place previously?
3. Where is the issue likely headed?

So, if you have a moment, check out the full post and feel free to leave a comment.

Disclosure: I am a paid consultant and author for iThenticate & WriteCheck.