Self Plagiarism And The Creative Process

from the but-is-it-infringement? dept

Last year, we had a post looking at the question of joke "stealing" and if it should be seen as infringement. Basically, there are tons of comics who are known for "stealing" the jokes of other comics, and there's even been some questions about trying to copyright jokes. The whole thing seems ridiculous, frankly. The power of a joke is rarely in the joke itself, but the delivery -- and you can't copyright that. Plus, there seem to be social measures in place to deal with "joke theft." Comics who are regularly caught doing it may have their reputations damaged, as was the case with Carlos Mencia last year.

But there's even more to it than that. In an interesting post on his blog, Scott Adams writes about how he (not for the first time) was caught drawing a nearly identical Dilbert comic strip to one he had done in the past. He delves a bit into his creative process to explain how it works, noting that there are a ton of ideas flowing through his head at once and he just has to reach out and grab from that mass of ideas:

For me, ideas stream through my head at a frantic pace. I feel like a bear trying to grab a salmon. If my paw misses its target, that salmon is gone for good. I don't dwell on it. I just lunge for the next salmon. I think people who have fewer thoughts per hour have time to let them settle in and form memories. It's just a theory.

That's likely true for many creative folks, including stand-up comics. As such, the ideas that you have in your head, and the ones that you hear and see from others end up getting mixed up in that mass of "idea salmon." As such, it shouldn't be surprising or scandalous or bad when someone ends up coming up with a similar (or even almost identical) joke or idea to someone else. It's just part of the creative process at work. It's not "stealing" and it's not "infringement." It's just a recognition of the creative process that involves a large number of ideas flowing around that a content creator tries to bring together in some sort of useful or interesting manner.

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