It is unfortunate that what should have been a festive celebration of Alex Calleja’s stand-up comedy special on Netflix has turned into a social media frenzy with allegations of joke stealing. It is so wild that his lawyer even issued a warning against anyone who would dare tarnish the image of the veteran comedian.
Honestly, joke stealing is not much of an issue in the local comedy scene, as we have grown accustomed to seeing comedians borrow jokes left and right, whether in movies or live performances. If you go to “The Library,” a well-known comedy bar, you can see comedians borrow bits from each other as they dabble in insult-based comedy.
However, Calleja’s brand of comedy is point-of-view, where jokes should come from one’s personal experiences and observations. This is why copying someone else’s material is not only frowned upon but even anathema to the industry.
Unbeknownst to many, jokes, like songs or any literary creations, enjoy copyright protection since they are considered creative products. However, as opposed to trademarks, which require registration, copyright protection exists from the moment of a work’s creation. This means that if someone comes up with a joke, they are automatically protected.
If they can get people who can testify they’ve heard their joke first, then they can judiciously argue their case. It doesn’t matter even if the infringer is the first one to post it on social media or even perform the material. At the end of the day, it is all about who created it first.
Incidentally, one who enjoys copyright is given both moral and economic rights by law. This means that if someone uses their material, that person should get consent from and give royalties to the latter. Why? Because it is not right to get accolades for something that the other person has worked hard to create, develop and improve.
At any rate, unlike music, where the court, particularly in the US, has already laid down the parameters to distinguish between original and copyrighted songs, there are no guidelines yet on comedy since there is no jurisprudence on the matter.
In fact, by way of example, I have this bit about the differences between men and women, which is strikingly similar to Calleja’s bit in his special, except that the examples are different. I have receipts (both testimonial and object) that show I have been doing that bit even before I became a stand-up comedian. Yet, I cannot accuse him of outright stealing, albeit a lot of people send me PMs about it. Why? Because, honestly, he may have thought it up simultaneously, as the material is too familiar and even too pedestrian. In comedy, we call that parallel thinking.
But there lies the problem.
It is difficult to say when it is a case of parallel thinking or stealing. Besides, it’s also hard to tell when a bit is confusingly similar to another. In the same Netflix special, Calleja has a bit about chickens raised in a stress-free environment, which, parenthetically, is in itself not really novel, as it is a usual impression already shared by other comics abroad.
Anyway, there is a part of that material where the chickens are supposedly conversing about what happened to their other chicken friend, which, it turns out, has died. Honestly, this is almost similar to GB Labrador’s bit about chickens engaged in the same conversation, except the premise and set-up are different, since he is talking about cockfighting.
In sum, there are still quite a number of gray areas that can be ironed out if comedians would sit down and discuss instead of threatening each other. But if it is really proven that there is a case of stealing, then it is obviously a case of copyright infringement for which the transgressor should be held liable.
In any case, if a comedian rehashes memes and old jokes, there is no violation there because they are already part of the public domain. If he does that, though, he loses his integrity as an artist and the respect of the stand-up community.
Hopefully, though, the issue at hand should not distract from the fact that Alex Calleja is a brilliant comedian and has a No.1 show on Netflix. After everything is said and done, he will go down as one of the best to ever do it.