Do Social Networking Sites Ruin Comedians' Career?

Pulse

oi-Staff

Friday, November 13, 2009, 16:40

It seems social networking sites are posing a major threat for the comedians' career. They are fuming as their jokes are being plagiarized on Twitter and other websites. Many people in the audience had already read them online and won't feel the comics again as they get repeated during gags.

The comedians claim that viewers who reproduce their work online are pilfering their stand-up routines. They are planning to save their jokes on computer as soon as they write them and record the date to provide evidence to fight potential copyright cases.

An up-and-coming British comedian has raised the issue after becoming embroiled in a row with a comedy website. Gary Delaney noticed that a number of his one-liners had been posted without attribution on Sickipedia.org, a huge online joke compendium. When he contacted the site and requested that they be taken down, he was subjected to a torrent of abuse at the hands of its users.

The comedian was first alerted to the situation when he noticed that crowds seemed to know what he was about to say, even while he was performing relatively recent material. Delaney also said that people posting his jokes on the microblogging site Twitter were devaluing his work.