Plagiarists' Corner (my idea)

The issue of comedic plagiarism has been occupying my mind recently. If it has been occupying yours too, you're a thief. There have been a couple of recent incidents in particular that have got my brain-cogs turning.

The first is that a while ago Stewart Lee (or whoever's in charge of his online activities) put up a section on his website called Plagiarists' Corner. There's nothing on there anymore. The section included video comparisons between Lee's material and that of other (more mainstream) acts, and the similarities between the bits. You can read more specifics here.

It's clear that Lee isn't a big fan of lesser-known comics having their material stolen. Here's a great bit on that very subject:



I suppose he wasn't expecting a page on his website to attract that much attention, but the reach of the comedy nerd should not be underestimated.

The second plagiaristic event was that one of Josie Long's jokes was sent into the Adam and Joe 6Music show. Whoever sent it in claimed it as their own work, and because A&J and Long share similar demographics, she has had to drop the bit.

This long-winded backstory is all leading up to the following conclusion:

the issue of plagiarism in comedy is really, really tricky.

There. Someone had to come out and say it.

I have to say that when the section was first added to Lee's website, I thought it was a little bit unpleasant. I love his work (as the constant mentions of him on here indicate), but it seemed a little bit off.

One reason for this is that, though championing the uncredited outsider, Lee has almost become an insider himself. He had his own TV show, he has a reasonable fanbase. This shouldn't make any difference of course; stealing is stealing. But at this stage it almost makes the whole thing seem a little bit petty.

Another reason was that some of the bits weren't that similar. There were a couple of comparisons with Ricky Gervais. Both Lee and Gervais did routines taking fables to their logical conclusions. But that seems like quite an obvious (and fruitful!) source of humour. I don't think Lee can be seen to 'own' it. If the bits had been really similar, there would be more of a case. (This is apparently true of the Jack Whitehall routine, though I didn't see it)

It's always possible that two people will come up with the same joke, particularly if it is drawn from a commonly held concept. There are loads of jokes analysing fables or expressions (I've done it myself many times!). There are parts of our shared culture and language that provide a good basis for comedy. It's looking at the familiar from a new perspective (perhaps the dreaded 'sideways look').

Another example I saw recently was in a Demetri Martin stand-up show (who is very funny, by the way). He took the expression of a glass being half-full or half-empty. He says you're not necessarily a pessimist if you say the glass is half empty. If there's blood in the glass, it's better that it's half gone.

Richard Herring does an almost identical bit, except he cites monkey semen, rather than blood (and thus has the comedic edge over Martin on this occasion). I don't know who came up with the idea first.

There are so many comedians drawing on similar experiences, incidents and uses of language, that it's not surprising that people come up with similar jokes. That's why accusations of plagiarism are so difficult. Maybe the guy who sent his joke to Adam and Joe really did make it up. It's not impossible.

Not only that, but it's always possible to steal a joke by accident. You can subconsciously remember something funny and think of it as your own.

That's not to say that people shouldn't ever complain. I'm sure if one of my jokes got stolen, I'd be really annoyed. But I'd have to be sure before pointing fingers (or knives).

Only when a joke is very unusual could you be sure of plagiarism. Which is a bit annoying. But I like the idea of writing only jokes that could never be stolen.

One way of doing this is to make them extremely personal and anecdotal. The other way is to make all your jokes really rubbish. I tend to go for the latter. My routines are utterly awful, but completely original.

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This is an example of the type of post I never usually finish. You can probably see why. I got bored by the third paragraph, but soldiered on to the end. Like strips of toast.