Robert Kaseberg, a resident from San Diego filed a lawsuti against the popular comedian, Conan O’Brien, claiming that he used his joke on his late night show. He said that Conan used 4 jokes he had posted on his personal blog and on Twitter and the first joke he posted on January 14 th this year was “A Delta flight this week took off from Cleveland to New York with just two passengers. And they fought over control of the armrest the entire flight”
Apparently on the same day, Conan O’ Brien allegedly made a joke that was similar to his:
The other joke Robert tweeted was about the famous Washington Monument: “You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage”. Well, Conan had a slightly modified version of the joke:
If you check the suit filed by Robert Kaseberg against Conan, he is seeking damages in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Conan’s company, Conaco released a statement about the lawsuit: “We at Conaco firmly believe there is no merit to this lawsuit”
A few days ago, a Twitter account @PlagiarismBad reported that Twitter was actually hiding tweets that were reported as stolen on grounds that the original author was the copyright holder:
BREAKING NEWS: Twitter is hiding tweets reported stolen. And it's referring to the author as a "copyright holder" pic.twitter.com/DkteWMZ7zg
— Plagiarism Is Bad (@PlagiarismBad) July 25, 2015
Twitter under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) handles copyright infringement on its platform. Twitter will ” will respond to reports of alleged copyright infringement, such as allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted image as a profile photo, header photo, or background, allegations concerning the unauthorized use of a copyrighted video or image uploaded through our media hosting services, or Tweets containing links to allegedly infringing materials.”
You can submit such claims by filling an application through an online form where you report such incidences. Twitter will then process the request by sending a confirmation to your email showing that the application was submitted. If they see fit to proceed, they will either remove or disable access to the material and notify the offenders with your complaint.
Watch out next time you plagiarize someone’s tweet in the future because you’ll be slapped with a lawsuit like the Kaseberg-Conan incident.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
