Jokes and IP: Who gets the last laugh?
An article from the Los Angeles Times was reproduced in my local paper, The Montreal Gazette. The article, ‘Funny, that was my joke’, talks about stand-up comics stealing one another’s jokes.
The article makes the requisite reference to intellectual property protection for jokes, this time in the form of copyright (see p. 2 of above linked article) rather than patents as has been the dominant theme around here lately (see March 24th post for most recent discussion.)
The bits that I like, though, are the realizations that everyone is influenced by other comics and people build upon one another’s work. I’m not saying no IP, folks, but we need to remember that most developments are incremental, building on what’s come before. So trying to apply different types of IP to things like jokes or, as I’ve seen elsewhere, fashion, doesn’t work so well when much is based on earlier innovation or creative expression or whatever.
To paraphrase somewhat from the Dawkins-Gould dispute, it’s more like evolution by creeps than evolution by jerks.
Posted on July 31st, 2007 under Intellectual property • 
Print This Post
• 
Email This Post
• RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback
December 27th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I think you understate the case. I suggest that 99.9%(roughly) of all innovations in all fields are incremental. “All cases are unique, and very similar to others”. That being so, I don’t think it’s convincing to say that patent rights are for that specific reason not appropriate for fashion or jokes. But maybe the conclusion would follow from different premises. Perhaps there isn’t sufficient public interest in a supply of new jokes (or fashion) to justify giving monopoly rights over them.