Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Re: Stolen jokes

If your site is not protected by federal copyright, then you would be limited to your actual damages, unless CA has some additional protection. Our CA member could still assist you. You won't know what you can get unless you have an attorney go over the facts with you.

Re: Stolen jokes

Re: Stolen jokes

First of all... your site IS protected by federal copyright. (Unless you've taken some specific action to dedicate it to the public domain, or something).

Jokes, however are generally subject to only very limited level of protection. In order to establish your case, you'd have to prove that the jokes in question were truly 'original', and that the alleged infringers had 'copied' your work.

The mere fact that the jokes were posted on a website doesn't PROVE that they had access to your work. You'd probably have to get server logs, etc., and conduct some fairly intense electronic discovery before establishing the 'access' side of the equation. Then, assuming you can prove access, the inquiry moves to 'substantial similarity'. The infringers' jokes would have to be VERY similar in their construction and wording to yours before you could win.

Finally, you'd have to overcome some possible defenses which might argue that the jokes are too short, or too simple to be entitled to protection, etc.

Proving the case could turn out to be very costly.

The amount you could recover will depend on whether your work was REGISTERED witht he US Copyright Office prior to the infringement, and whether the defendants' action is particularly eggregious or willful.

Best bet is to consult an attorney in your city, who's familiar with this kind of case.

Feel free to call me.