Tag: golden age

Lewis Black and his Posse: Comedians at the Copyright Barricades

On By carlunegbuIn Other ControversiesLeave a comment

When it comes to the business of copyrights and its protection, one could be forgiven for thinking of comedians as downstairs people compared to musicians. To be sure, this old problem also seems to be a matter of respect as well as money. Not surprisingly, the comedy community these days is trying to do something about it and this time it’s the streaming services that are in their crosshairs for allegedly using their work without paying compensation for it by way of licensing. Enter Lewis Black: the comedian is suing the streamer Pandora in a California federal court for $10 million in copyright infringement damages, for allegedly streaming about 68 of his works without a license. The works in question are comedy recordings.

Black is only the latest comedian to file this sort of claim against Pandora, which is already being sued by comedians like Andrew Dice Clay, Ron White and others, including the estates of George Carlin and Robin Williams.  A win in these lawsuits will be a huge development both in terms of expanding the landscape of available copyright protection and of course turning on an additional money tap for comedians. The other big streamer Spotify avoided similar litigation last year by moving pre-emptively to yank some comedy recording from its platform after it couldn’t agree terms with the copyright holders. In that dispute, Black himself, in a gesture of solidarity with the aggrieved comedians demanded that his own works be taken off Spotify platforms as well. 

But what is really at issue in these cases and can Black and his brethren in fact win?

For starters, it bears explaining that when a work is protected by copyright, it means that the said work is both an “original” creation of the copyright owner as well as a thing that is affixed to a “tangible medium.” The said copyright owner could be an artist, a designer, a writer and more.

Now, though the allegation of the comedians we’re dealing with here is that the streamers are basically not paying for the recording being streamed at all, the question that must ultimately be resolved when it comes time to pay is exactly what particular elements of the comedy “work” should be paid for under a license. In other words, exactly what contents of the work are being licensed by the streamers? (The sort of copyright that comedians hold in their work is known as “spoken-word” copyrights.)  

While the streamers like Pandora and Spotify claim that a comedy recording is a single unified product that should attract only one license fee for the whole work, the comedians, for their part, claim that a comedy recording does in fact have two portions, namely, the recording itself and then the composition, or comedy writing, as separate components. To support their case, the comedians point to the situation with musical copyrights where the license purchaser, say a streaming service, buys and pays for both the musical recording itself as well as the composition of the song lyrics, as separate licenses. This argument was well foreshadowed by Black’s now famous remark that “a joke is just as powerful as a lyric of a song,” with the obvious implication that since the streamers are already paying separately for song lyrics, why not a joke as well.

Then again, one might well ask: if a musical recording and comedy recording are so analogous to each other, how come the two products have been treated so differently for so long and how come the comedians are only speaking up now?

It is worth noting how this question of timing seems to have played into the defense of the streamers as they attempt to fight off the recognition of this additional copyright, namely, comedy writing, which the comedians are seeking. In this regard, the streamers’ argument can be described as one based on tradition, something that some may well perceive as somewhat oppressive.  And it appears to relate to rather philosophical questions about the historical place of comedy in the broader society’s scheme of things and the inevitable value judgments around such questions. In this context, it is common knowledge that comedy’s existing recognition as an authentic art form or rather as “its own thing” is of rather recent vintage.  By contrast, music and the visual arts (think sculpture, painting, et cetera) have long been respected as legitimate art forms with valid claims to their own integrity and thus deserving of protection via things like copyright.      

Now fast forward to contemporary times and it is soon obvious that comedy’s fortunes have changed: with its newfound status as a legitimate art form, basking in the glow of a “golden age,” comedy no doubt has acquired a quite defensible claim to the greater protection of its integrity, just like music and the visual arts. Thus, for the comedy community, there is no better time than now to press this additional claim as part of an overall effort to protect every aspect of their art form and to benefit from it where appropriate. Quite simply, if not now, when?

So, in a manner of speaking, this brings us to a history versus law scenario: the comedy community’s good timing in launching this fight for a bigger slice of the pie is one thing, but whether the court will recognize their claim is quite another, considering the novelty of their claim. Though there is no certainty as to what the court will do, yet, if the comedians can justify their new claims under the law, then history won’t be able to stand in their way and they will win big. As already noted, such a big win will expand the contours of what elements of a work of comedy are protected from infringement and thus available for additional licensing. In this battle for more respect and money it seems like the comedians are the odds-on favorites to win, given the similarity of a joke and a song lyric in this copyright context and the sheer oddness of continuing to treat the two items differently. But, of course, the jury’s still out on the matter.  

*Book Release Notice: Well, folks, the new book “Comedy Goes to Court: When People Stop Laughing and Start Fighting,” is finally here and is scheduled for official release on September 22, 2022. Publisher: Hybrid Global Publishing. However, as of today the book is available on Amazon as an ebook for 99 cents. If you do obtain your copy at Amazon and you happen to like the book, please feel free to recommend the book to your friends/associates by simply giving the book a nice review/recommendation on Amazon. Enjoy the read and the laughs! Cheers!

Seriously, Can Comedy and Cancel Culture Live on the Same Planet?

On By carlunegbuIn Other ControversiesLeave a comment

Comedy is at a quite different place today than it was just a generation ago.

 In that simpler time, comedy was essentially about making people laugh, whether it was slapstick humor or one involving social commentary.  Then society as a whole started to change, beginning in the 1960s, with the push to create a more just and less oppressive society. Thus began our society’s journey to its ultimate destination, namely, our present era of “political correctness” (PC), which requires all of society’s speech to respect the sensibilities of its oppressed or vulnerable groups. In so doing, PC has tended to create around said groups a zone of protection from offensive speech.  

More consequential yet in our new PC society, especially for comedians who make their living by talking, is the emergence of a rather virulent and oppressive offshoot of PC known as “cancel culture,” courtesy of the confluence of social media, woke culture and the relative decline in the importance of comedy clubs in the career advancement of comedians. As the name implies, cancel culture simply “cancels” people for expressing offensive or objectionable opinions in the social conversation; it also cancels places and institutions for representing said offensive ideas.

In the current architecture of the cancel culture phenomenon, “wokeness” functions as the litmus test for cancellations while social media is the forum for the trial and execution of convicted offenders of the woke orthodoxy, a regularly updated and sometimes unpredictable code of conduct.  Over the past two or so decades, as one might predict, especially since the advent of Twitter, the so-called PC brigade has increasingly weighed in on just how far comedians can freely swing their bats in exercising their art form. In other words, they’ve taken a position on what sort of “material” comedians are permitted to use for their work.

Hence, over the said period, several comedians have gotten into trouble for literally running the red light of political correctness, including Tracy Morgan (gay jokes); Dane Cook (Aurora, Colorado theater shooting); Bill Maher (cowardly US soldiers vs. brave terrorists) George Lopez (Kirstie Alley’s weight problem); Gilbert Gottfried (Japanese tsunami jokes) and Tosh. O (rape jokes).

Not surprisingly many in the comedy community find this state of affairs simply unacceptable. Lisa Lampanelli’s May 2013 guest column for the Hollywood Reporter (“How Political Correctness is Killing Comedy”), for example, aptly captures the prevailing sentiment of the comedy community on this matter: fundamentally, most comedians believe their art form is subjective in nature when it comes to what jokes appeal to different people and that to deny an artist the chance to explore his art is like forcing your beliefs on him. 

So, the question arises, can comedy and cancel culture co-exist with each other on the same planet?  As uncomfortable as it might seem, the short answer is, well, they’re going to have to.

For starters, political correctness, to be sure, seems to have some redeeming qualities, considering our society’s history of oppression and the relative permissiveness of our laws in that regard. True, there is always the risk of the pendulum swinging too far in the direction of cancel culture. Yet, PC in its good moments might actually have a salutary influence upon the civic life of any modern society. For instance, in America, the First Amendment, which is a wonderful gift that we enjoy, nonetheless gives protection to so much hurtful and, arguably, unnecessary speech that might well be homophobic, xenophobic, racist or misogynistic. Perhaps in those circumstances, it may not be such a bad thing for PC to occasionally step in and try to civilize our society.

Take the Don Imus controversy in 2007 concerning the Rutgers University basketball women, whom the late former radio host and humorist had attacked without any provocation as “nappy-headed hos” during an infamous episode of his show “Imus in the Morning.” Though to his credit Imus later apologized for his wrongheaded actions, the fact remains that he was well within his First Amendment rights when he lobbed the rather gratuitous attack on the hapless ladies. In fact, prior to the firestorm that followed his attack on the women, Imus was known to tout his irreverent show as the “First Amendment at its best and its worst.” 

Now what’s the way forward in this apparent standoff between these two warring contingents, none of which is entirely blameless. Well, the starting point here is to recognize that cancel culture isn’t going anywhere soon. Under the circumstances, therefore, it is comedy more than the cancel culture squad that has to adjust to the “reality of the times”, not least for the very simple reason that comedians actually have a job to do and a living to make for that matter. Speaking of which, it must be noted that comedy is now a mature art form at a brilliant “golden age” moment, where the rewards of success are literally astronomical compared to its past.

More importantly, since comedians are doing comedy not for themselves but rather for the broader society, they must consider their “shtick” as something of a service or product being offered for sale in the marketplace. As a matter of sheer economics, it is no more a winning strategy for a comedian to push comic “material” that the audience, owing to changing sensibilities, won’t find funny than it is for a salesman to be offering goods that his prospective customers won’t buy owing to changing tastes.

For good or ill, navigating the waters of cancel culture has become a cost of doing business today in our society and must be accommodated as such. Not least because political correctness and cancel culture are not directed at comedy alone: they set down rules of general application touching every segment of society, including politicos and corporations.  

In the end, the good news for talented comedians with a healthy imagination and creativity is that there is still a lot of game on the ground, meaning that there is yet so much funny stuff out there in the real world that can be said without necessarily burning down the town or breaching the proverbial “red line” drawn by contemporary society, however debatable the said line might be. Besides, in real life anyway, one cannot simply say whatever one likes any more than one can do whatever one likes.   So, there you have it!