Intellectual Property Law

Comedy is a Serious Business

By Mike Madison

Late last year the Virginia Law Review published a provocative and entertaining article by Dotan Oliar and Christopher Sprigman on copyright law and the social norms of stand-up comics. There’s No Free Laugh (Anymore): The Emergence of Intellectual Property Norms and the Transformation of Stand-Up Comedy, 94 Va. L. Rev. 1787 (2008).

The law review’s online supplement, In Brief, has just published a series of responses to that article, by me, Katherine Strandburg, Jennifer Rothman, and Henry Smith. In alphabetical order:

Michael J. Madison, Of Coase and Comics, or, The Comedy of Copyright

Jennifer E. Rothman, Custom, Comedy, and the Value of Dissent

Henry E. Smith, Does Equity Pass the Laugh Test?: A Response to Oliar and Sprigman

Katherine J. Strandburg, Who’s In the Club?: A Response to Oliar and Sprigman

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Full post as published by Madisonian.net on April 30, 2009 (boomark / email).