Like most everything else that involves creativity — photography, writing, music, movies — the Internet gobbles everything up, and spits it out for FREE. We're all supposed to keep our day jobs (if we even have them) and DONATE our creativity FREE.
Oh yes, and if anybody DOES have any money, DONATE it to a GOFUNDME campaign because the Internet is now the alternative for the government doing its job (like providing health care). Oh yes, and give PAYPAL donations to bloggers who go around sucking music, apps, comic books, whatever from mysterious torrents and putting them up on their more visible GOOGLE-driven blogs.
About the only surprise in this article (which you can Google for FREE to see the whole thing) is that it isn't just vainglorious weasels stealing memes and jokes to impress their small circle of friends, or to attempt to beef up their Twitter follower list, it's rich business scumbags.
Memes are regularly stolen by MEME websites. In many cases, especially on those "QUOTE" websites, all that changes is the photo in the meme. Like harvesting body parts, weasels monitor the Net and harvest new QUOTE MEMES...and it doesn't matter if George Carlin, Abe Lincoln or Groucho Marx ever said the attributed joke. It's stolen, credited to the wrong person, and a different stolen photo used on the MEME.
An idiot website where cat photos were mated with stupid captions ("I Has Cheezburger!") joined The Great God Google, and Bozo Bezos and Wikipedia and Assange in screaming that NO LAWS should EVER be passed involving copyright on the Internet. "It will RUIN FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!!!!!!!"
Right, it would also mean that websites would actually have to PAY for the photos they use, answer DMCA takedowns quickly, and not laugh all the way to the bank.
If you want the lyrics to almost ANY song, just type the song title and LYRICS, and there you are -- maybe a dozen look-alike lyric-theft websites. Usually all of them have the same mis-heard lyrics, too. They just steal from each other, and since these sites are usually spawned in Croatia or Ukraine or some other armpit country full if jibbering shoulder-shrugging monkeys who can't speak English, it's up to YOU to amend the lyrics you just downloaded.
Joke thievery isn't new, of course. Milton Berle made a joke of being "The Thief of Badgags." He'd even set himself up as the stooge for a punchline. He used this one hundreds of times on variety shows:
MILTON: (after somebody told a joke that got laughs) "I wish I said that."
ZINGER: "You will."
Some comedians, a touchy and sensitive bunch, figured that any bit they originated couldn't possibly be thought up by somebody else, and most certainly, couldn't be adapted or improved on.
Will Jordan was depressed and enraged that Jack Carter copied Will's Ed Sullivan impression. Well, yes, it's unfortunate that when a mimic discovers the "key" to a celebrity's identity, others start imitating the imitation.
Will also insisted that Mel Brooks took his idea of a Hitler musical. And Lenny Bruce took a concept, too. Sadly, it made Jordan leery of creating anything else that could be swiped.
Ironically one of his best bits, which nobody swiped, and which I saw him do live at a "Sons of the Desert" banquet, was a brilliant recreation of "Frankenstein," complete with Dwight Frye mimicry and sound effects.
Don Adams stole some bits from Jackie Mason word for word. Mason didn't go rushing to the newspapers to complain. More recently, in the cases of Robin Williams, Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook, the Internet allowed other comics, and some reviewers, to point out tired gags re-used or lines that were suspiciously re-written. Naming and shaming probably didn't affect the box office for these guys.
One of the few examples of money being made on a joke thievery complaint was when a mediocre nobody filed against Conan O'Brien. The whine was that he recognized some of his Twitter jokes in O'Brien's monologues (yes, Conan actually tells a few jokes besides absorbing applause for five minutes on walking out, and then making faces and doing his "string dance").
O'Brien's very logical defense was that dozens of wits will come up with the same topical joke. Some nights, Leno and Letterman writers would come up with almost identical gags, on the same night, and it was obvious there was no way they could've been swiped. If you check the entries in The New Yorker cartoon caption contests, where readers can have the "fun" of wading through hundreds of submissions to vote on their favorites, you'll find the same punchline repeated again and again.
O'Brien eventually settled the nuisance suit because the lawyer fees were getting ridiculous.
The bottom line? Like cellphone blabberers who can't shut up while in a supermarket, bank or on the street, the rude behavior of plagiarists and Internet thieves is now accepted as a part of life. If you want to amuse your Twitter followers or Facebook friends with a meme or a joke, don't be surprised if it turns up all over the Net with no money or credit. If you create something on YouTube, you'll find some jerks in Croatia somewhere harvesting your work and daring you to spend a half hour filing a DMCA when YouTube refused to monetize you in the first place. If you create a Photoshop gag and put it on your blog, with your name and copyright symbol on the bottom, you will soon discover somebody else Photoshopped your name OFF the picture and posted it so that HE could get nice comments.
Bob Dylan sang (and you can listen to the song free on YouTube), "Dignity is the first to leave." Not far behind, Courtesy, Morality, and all the other niceties of civilization. And no, don't expect the law to help you. In most cases, the Internet makes sure either the victim can't find the abuser, or that too much time and money will be involved in getting a cease and desist. Money? Damages? No no, that's in the past. It was in the past that I successfully got a five figure settlement when somebody plagiarized one of my books, using me and my research as an unwilling and uncredited co-writer.
Today..."heaven knows. Anything goes." (I quote Cole Porter, in what actually is "fair use.")
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