Is Amy Schumer a serial joke thief? Video compilation compares clips, side by side

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You can’t copyright an idea. While a couple of the jokes in the video are nearly word-for-word, most of them are just good concepts with, as Mister44 says, obvious jokes.
The Obvious Child bit is even more absurd. Because no 2 women have ever had similar thoughts about their dirty underwear. /sarcasm

I can understand the frustration and outrage at seeing someone get more/massive success from similar jokes, but it’s unfair to suggest that Schumer is outright stealing.

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Emo Phiilips

uhm… sorry does not come anywhere near stealing a joke. First of all most of these lines aren’t even jokes, or bits, they are just a line. Feels a lot more like, lets take the successful woman down bit. So, I have to immediately suspect the accusers here of being flaming douchebags.

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Didn’t they make a whole movie documentary about comedians all telling the same joke? Oh, yeah, The Aristocrats.

Of course, they expect each other to add their own material and style to the thing and not just rip off someone else’s delivery word-for-word, but beyond that no-one claims ownership of the basic joke.

Like whatever number of basic stories there are in the world, I expect there’s only a limited number of basic jokes. Like the post about magic tricks and storytelling that was put up a few days ago, the art isn’t in the joke but how you tell it.*

*44! 27! 78!

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Sigh… Some guys just can’t tell a joke.

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Serious allegations require serious proof. Playing videos of other people making the same joke years earlier isn’t proof – you need to prove that she saw that but and lifted it. Schemer’s jokes are mostly in the arena of sex and dating – there’s only so much to be said on the matter, and if she talks long enough she’s going to say something someone else has – it’s inevitable.

The only odd thing was the mad TV sketch similarity. But again if you produce a show with oodles of sketches, eventually you’ll do something someone else as – and unless you’re aware of it it’s not copying.

Also odd that sitcom plots get rehashed without issue. Nobody gives a crap.

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Amy Schumer’s jokes are mostly in the arena of sex and dating. There’s only so much to be said on the matter, and if she talks long enough she’s going to say something someone else has. It’s inevitable.

If you produce a show with lots of sketches, eventually you’ll do something someone else as, and unless you’re aware of it, it’s not copying.

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from the video it was pretty clear that she or one of her writers has regularly been lifting jokes. this makes sense as she has churned out so much material, it must be difficult to keep everything fresh and original and funny. she has most certainly had a lot of original material. I think with all the writers she has used she might not even be aware that some of her material was lifted, and it doesn’t comprise the bulk of her work. if i were her i’d say, yeah those do seem similar, this wasn’t intentional, sorry, and move on.

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A frog you say, what then…

[quote=ā€œlogruszed, post:12, topic:72876ā€]
The only one I see as troublesome comes from her TV show, the one that is very similar to a Mad TV sketch, but since she employs over a dozen full time writers I think it’s going to be hard to pin that on her specifically.
[/quote]The MadTV sketch is pretty different - Theirs plays on the idea that the woman doesn’t want to seem racist, and is having trouble describing a person without saying they’re black. Schumer’s is based on the fact that she can’t tell them apart, because to that skit character, all black people look alike. There’s similarities in setting, and they both share the general theme of racism, but the jokes and angles are different.

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Fun facts - for quite a bit of his career, Louie CK has faced repeated accusations of stealing jokes, particularly from David Cross.

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I made up a joke with a friend. He told his friend, who was a previous agent for a Big Name Comedian. Days later, I caught Big Name Comedian doing the joke on a tv interview. My friend and I laughed about it. (We’re not in the joke selling business so I understand this is different from what Schumer is accused of). Big Name Comedian passed away. Wish he was still around to steal stuff from me.

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The list has actually become a running joke around here :stuck_out_tongue:
But yeah, I agree with that and still find the coomment funny YMMV

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And if there are enough comments on a topic someone will eventually say something very similar to what the previous poster said… So much so that I’m not sure if you did that on purpose.

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He ripped off the ā€œYou can do what you want to me when I’m deadā€ bit at the very least…

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I’ve been reading this blog for years, M_Dub. Years before September of 2013, by the way. I simply don’t make a lot of comments on blogs, but this article really bothered me, especially coming from Xeni, who usually does a bit more research before kinda’ hanging someone out to dry.

It’s ill informed, and sensationalistic, which are two things Boing-Boing seem to strive really hard not to be.

But hey, I’m glad I could help you feel better by providing you an opportunity to point out this account is new. I also have a Twitter account I created in 2007 but I use it to read posts rather than make them, so perhaps that would be a good opportunity to boost your sense of pride in yourself. See, I don’t have a lot of followers based on my Twitter usage patterns, so you could attack me for that. I can’t help but think that would make you feel better.

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So everyone in this thread will come to the defense of Carlos Mencia and Dennis Leary and Dane Cook next?

I agree, ideas can’t truly be proprietary, and some of the proof is a stretch. But Amy Schumer did make a lot of money out of the hard work of others. I believe she’s being targeted because of her politics, but I also believe that that is the same reason for so many defensive arguments.

Or maybe I am projecting my cynicism.

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In Louie’s defense, I think it’s also possible that it’s just a case of Parallel creation - after all, my father tells the exact same joke, and he wouldn’t know Louie CK if Louie was waving his dick at him in a hotel room. Let alone David Cross, who he’d probably think was a Bond villain. The core concept of the joke isn’t a very unusual one.

But, he may have also swiped it, I genuinely haven’t dug to deep on that one, so I don’t know. I haven’t even seen the bits side by side, let alone tried to establish how likely it is that Louie had seen the bit before he had it in his act.

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Well yeah and I’m happy to give Amy Schumer the benefit of the doubt, so I should probably do the same for Louis CK. I’m a big David Cross fan though, and when I saw Louis CK’s bit I really bristled…

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