Around two weeks ago, a lawsuit was filed against Conan O'Brien and two other members of his Conan Team. In the complaint Conan O'Brien had supposedly stolen jokes off someone's personal Twitter account and used them in his monologue the same night the tweets were tweeted.
It was a certain Robert Kaseberg that filed the complaint last July 22nd after he was surprised to find his jokes being used on the late night show just hours after he had posted them himself. In a report from The Hollywood Reporter, Kaseberg told the court that a total of four jokes were used from his Twitter account going way back to the beginning of the year when the first joke was stolen on the 14th of January.
WGNtv.com also provided information that Kaseberg is suing the host for more than $600,000 in damages and has been publicizing his lawsuit against Conan O'Brien and his team on his personal Twitter account.
With all the publicity the issue has had, the Conan O'Brien joke stealing lawsuit has become a hot topic on social media and many are reconsidering whether there really was a crime committed.
A lot of members of the public have commented that there is a possibility that more than one person can come up with a similar joke especially when it's about a certain topic that is trending, or well known to the public.
However with Twitter being part of this joke stealing drama, the famous social media site has taken matters into their own hands to help stop joke theft. According to The Atlantic, Twitter has been subject to joke theft for a while now, and with the latest issue they decided to make some changes on their site. Apparently someone noticed on the 25th of July that a comedians joke had been deleted and replaced by a phrase stating "a report from the copyright holder."
Due to the statement Twitter made, it looks like they are considering copyright issues and are allowing members to complain or report stolen tweets.
Conan O' Brien has yet to make a statement on the lawsuit. However his Conan team has stated, "We at Conaco firmly believe there is no merit to this lawsuit."
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