Not Funny: The Conan O'Brien Joke-Stealing Lawsuit Is Still Going On

from the funny-story dept

We've obviously talked about the great deal of harm that a protectionist view of copyright can cause, both in terms of its ability to deny the public useful innovations and its use by the powerful to bully the weak. But one of the harms in protectionism and the ever-expanding culture of ownership that pervades modern life that is less talked about, possibly because it's somewhat obvious, is its sheer ability to bog down individuals in an absurdly lengthy legal process that seems to move at a pace purposefully calibrated to be as frustrating as possible.

A great example of this is the copyright case Conan O'Brien is embroiled in still, all over accusations that he and his writing staff "stole" a handful of jokes from a freelance comedian, who has claimed copyright over them. We first wrote about this case in the first half of 2017, where a judge had greenlit all of this for a jury trial, but the lawsuit itself was actually filed back in 2015. And, incredibly, it's still going on. The clock is still running at three years, with the most recent news being that the court has refused to allow O'Brien's team two affirmative defenses based on the actions of the plaintiff.

The court on Thursday dismissed two of O'Brien's affirmative defenses, one arguing that Kaseberg had committed fraud on the copyright office and the other that he isn't entitled to relief because he withheld relevant documents during discovery and has "unclean hands."

"Even if omission of the Court’s ultimate conclusion that the jokes were entitled only to thin copyright protection were misleading, however, the Court would have to conclude that there was no intent to defraud here," writes Sammartino. "It is undisputed that Plaintiff’s counsel attached a copy of the Court’s full Order to the letter to the Office. Had Plaintiff been attempting to pull a fast one on the Office by misrepresenting the Court’s Order, he would not have provided the Office with a means of verifying that deception."

I would quibble with the court's logic in that, actually. After all, the Copyright Office is not known for its stringent background checking work generally speaking. More generally, how often do we encounter folks making assertions with citations that don't fully support those assertions, as a way to try to bolster their claim under the assumption that nobody is actually going to dissect the citation? That happens all the time.

That said, the ruling isn't blatantly silly. Unlike, say, the fact that O'Brien is still dealing with a lawsuit nearly four years running due to a claim of copyright over a couple of jokes. Anyone that would want to claim that that isn't absurd needs medical care, in my view.

Filed Under: comedy, conan o'brien, copyright, joke theft