Emo Takes Ownership of Long comedy Career

Because these sort of jokes (one-liners) are so simple, they're easy to plagiarize on the Internet.

(Steven) Wright has experienced that with a number of his jokes, which go uncredited. But (Emo) Phillips says its rarely other comedians stealing jokes, it's usually laypeople.

"There's a tremendous code of honour amongst standup comedians, which was another thing that drew me in to the profession," he says. "For instance, the Yuk Yuk's chain is run by Mark Breslin, who has a lot of integrity and bans comedians who knowingly steal material. There's a lot of honour and pride amongst comedians. We're like samurais."

Still, there are constant allegations on the Internet about one comedian stealing another's material.

Which brings up the question, does anyone really own a joke? Or is it public domain once it's been uttered?

Phillips himself had one particular joke (reprinted below) voted the best religious joke of all time on Anglican Church website Shipoffools.com — but he wasn't credited for writing it.

"It's nonsense to say that no one has ownership of a joke, of course you have ownership of a joke," Phillips says.

"I mean, you have ownership of a painting or a symphony or a novel, don't you? The problem is that no one comes up to someone in a bar going, 'Hey, you wanna hear a novel? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .' "

Emo Takes Ownership of Long comedy Career / By Nick Lewis /Published in The Calgary Herald on Sept. 14, 2006

Joe Rogan Experience #193

Joe Rogan: I truly believe that people who steal can’t write. I really do. I think its… I don’t think you can do both. I think something happens when you steal and that this, this, this being disingenuous, this pretending, this bullshit, knowing that you’re not really doing what you’re claiming to be doing and that you’re pretending, that you’re ripping people off and lying, and projecting this false self image which is all ego, which is exactly what shuts you off from the ability to come up with new shit.

Like when you come up with new shit, its not like you thinking about you, you see something and you go, “huh, look at this right here, this is ridiculous”. And you know what I mean, its not you… its you coming up with it, but you’re not involving yourself, you’re not trying to project a certain image, you’re not, you know, making sure that people think of you a certain way. You’re not even thinking that. Because when you do think like that, that’s, that shuts off creativity. 

And when a guy steals, what a guy is doing when he’s stealing is he’s trying to make himself better than he is. He’s trying to pretend that he’s smarter than he is, he’s trying to put out stuff pretending that he figured this out and its really someone else. Its all ego. 

Joe Rogan Experience #193

Joe Rogan Experience #193

Joe Rogan: There’s been a few instances, uh, in the past where there was a guy that was kind of like clearly plagiarizing another guy and then, you know, one guy became famous with other people’s shit. It’s happened more than once. And we’ve all the real pain and frustration of watching someone do somebody else’s material where you know that they’re stealing and they’re not compensating them… they’re just stealing. And it was like a Wild West thing. It was like no one was doing anything about it and it was a… to treat it like it was no big deal… you’re absolutely crazy. It’s the core of someone’s ability to perform on stage… is having great material.

Jim Gaffigan: It’s their life. It’s their life.

JR: You could be the best comic in the world and if you have nothing to say on stage, for that moment, if you go on stage and you having nothing prepared and you have nothing to say you’re fucked. Its not going to be good. You need premises, you need material and so to pretend that it wasn’t a big deal… that the industry was treating it like it wasn’t a big deal, and we were like, “this is crazy… you’ve got an insane person…”

JG: I told you that night what you did was very important. I mean it was very important.

JR: Well for us, it had to happen. It had gotten to a point where everyone was just turning a blind eye to it because they were profiting off of it. And that’s what happens when a person becomes successful… and is a plagiarist. If it was any other form of art, you know writing, writing would be super clear, I mean the guy would go to jail. You know if it was music, they would take all your money. If they can prove you have the same beats and you’re copying it, they take all your fucking money.

JG: And we’re not talking about similar premises…

JR: Which we all have…

JG: Which is always going to happen.

Joe Rogan Experience #193