Conan O'Brien Sued for Stealing Jokes from Blogger

Late night television host Conan O’Brien finds himself on the wrong end of a lawsuit, targeted by a blogger for alleged copyright violations. From The Hollywood Reporter:

According to a complaint filed on July 22 in California federal court by Robert Kaseberg, the [four allegedly stolen] jokes were posted on a personal blog and on Twitter before making it into O’Brien’s late night show monologue.

Kaseberg says he published the first joke in January 14, writing, “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.”

That same day, O’Brien made a similar joke on his show.

Chances are, even if the jokes were appropriated, O’Brien was not personally involved. A whole team of writers come up with such shows’ schtick each day. The pressure to develop new material could conceivably drive some to “research” ideas on the internet.