Joke Thieves

[faceless]

I've been following Gary Delaney's tweets for a while and a few months back he wrote that people had been posting jokes without crediting him - I responded that I'd posted one here (the one about swine flu and 'fearing the wurst') so he could 'stick it up his jumper'! He replied in good form, but I imagine it must be very frustrating for people to rip off his work like that.

[faceless]

It's not much of a leap to make this crack - it just about writes itself.

[faceless]

[major.tom]

Do we own every Brain Fart ((c) George Carlin) that escapes our word holes?

It's Intellectual Property law run amok.

[faceless]

But jokes are a commodity - whereas Carlin relied more on a general comedy routine that required acceptance of the piece as a whole. Like comparing a recognisable pop song to free jazz, perhaps?

I just read that back and it sounds wanky - but hey, it's the best I can do at this time!

[faceless]

Patton Oswalt has come out fighting against this twat, Nick Madson, who has blatantly ripped off part of his work. There's no doubt whatsoever that this is just theft... you only need to listen to the first 90 seconds of each clip to see what's up.

If this was the good old days there'd be a posse being rounded up right now!

[faceless]

Cheggers: You're all bullies
Comics blasted for protecting their work
chortle.co.uk

Keith Chegwin has complained that he’s being ‘bullied’ by comedians – just because they want credit for jokes they wrote. The TV presenter has attracted widespread flack after stealing dozens of jokes he didn’t write and posting them to the 38,000 people who read his Twitter feed. He is also encouraging everyone to spread the gags as widely as they can, rendering them unusable by the comics who actually created them.

Even after the storm blew up, Chegwin has defiantly continued to post gags working comics use in the sets they use to earn their living, and invited people to steal them as if they were his to give away. Yet the former alcoholic has branded anyone who dare criticise him as a ‘cyberbully’.

‘These are the people I used to admire,’ he tweeted. ‘They're just really hostile - I'm so disappointed. Cyber buliies [sic]. ‘Very cruel people on here: Plus comics Ed Byre [sic], Simon Evans, Russell Kane, David Baddiel, who wonders if I’m back drinking. Give it a rest’ He also gave out their Twitter account details, prompting his fans to bombard the comedians with messages – while blocking several critics from contacting him through Twitter.

Byrne sent a message to Chegwin over the microblogging network: ‘You know that calling me a Cyber Bully is completely unfair. I've done no such thing.’ While Baddiel said: ‘Cheggers fans angrier than Al-Qaeda. No wish to offend though’ and apologised to the presenter for suggesting he was back on the booze.’

Supposed ‘bully’ Simon Evans started the whole debate off by telling Chegwin: ‘Cheggars old chap, you are no doubt acting out of good intentions but these jokes are written by professionals. They earn their keep telling them and it's really not on to just distribute them like this, without credit.'

At the same time, Byrne said: ‘I think you’re wrong not crediting your sources. Of the last four jokes you tweeted one was Milton Jones and one was Lee Mack. Both working comics.’ Cheggers posted back: ‘Most of the gags are my very own & original. Others are so old I'm not gonna start crediting dead people?’ ‘I've really upset these standup comics. Most of them doesn’t [sic] write good Stuff they just refresh your memory.’

----------------------

Cheggers is clearly a bawbag, but for Chortle bloke Steve Bennett to point out anyone's grammatical errors or spelling mistakes is quite something!

[faceless]

Thieving fucker!

[SquareEyes]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (c) SquareEyes

[faceless]

Not bad Squarey haha

Here's a reply from another forum about this guy...

-----------------------

I was in Australia in 2008 and performed the headline set during a heat of the open mike competition at Comedy on the Rox in Sydney - a lovely gig, very well run by an ethusiastic and supportive promoter. I went on first as that's the way the night was set up, but stayed to watch the newer acts.

As usual, there was a fair mix of talent and quality in show, but one guy did stand out, partly for his Tiggerish on stage manner, but more so to me because I knew a couple of the gags, and the compere knew the rest. He was a lovely guy and came up to us afterwards to ask some advice, and I had to tell him I thought his first gag was, in my opinion, a little dubious (how can I put this delicately) in its treatment of race, but also I didn't think it was his. He claimed he 'had a writer' who had come up with it. When the compere (who's name I'm afraid I can't remember, but who was also a full time comic) challenged him on some of his other material, he used the same defence. Whilst he may have been genuine in this, we pointed out that he didn't have a 'writer', he had someone who'd watched some DVDs, ripped them off and then sold stuff as his, so what he had was a 'thief'.

The compere said to him that he was 'about three weeks away from getting a reputation that would take years to get rid of.' I remember that exactly because it was so accurate. The comic seemed to take this on board, everyone wished each other well and we all went our separate ways.

Having given him the benefit of the doubt, I see that three years later he is doing exactly the same, although to give him his due, his taste in the jokes he's nicking does seem to have improved. I also realise to the non-comic, or indeed even the old school comic, joke theft is not such a big deal, but these jokes are our material, and therefore our living, and so to blatantly pass them off as your own is genuine theft. I'm sure 'Australia's Got Talent' will enjoy the publicity and the fuss and then do nothing about it, but it would be lovely if Lee could get his lawyer in because it looks to me very much like an open and shut case in an area of intellectual property theft which is notoriously difficult.

His name was Jordan, by the way, though I would have thought that was fairly obvious by now. He might want to change it to someone else's soon anyway, cos - well, it's just a name, isn't it?


Alistair Barrie

www.alistairbarrie.com

[luke]