Conan O'Brien Sued for Allegedly Stealing Jokes from Twitter

Conan O'Brien is being sued in a lawsuit by Robert "Alex" Kaseberg, who claims O'Brien used four of his jokes without permission, violating copyright. The jokes were posted on Kaseberg's personal blog and Twitter, and O'Brien allegedly used similar versions on Conan. Meanwhile, Twitter has been cracking down on plagiarism, deleting copied tweets.

The four jokes Kaseberg referred to were about Tom Brady, Caitlyn Jenner, the Washington Monument and an airplane flights.

"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," Kaseberg wrote.

Conan used a similar joke the same day.

"The Washington Monument is ten inches shorter than previously thought. You know the winter has been cold when a monument suffers from shrinkage," Kaseberg tweeted.

Conan again used a similar joke.

Kaseberg, who says he contributed to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for 20 years, filed the complaint in California on July 22.

Conan sidekick Andy Richter doesn't seem to be taking the allegations too seriously.

"There's no possible way more than one person could have concurrently had these same species-elevating insights!" he tweeted.

There's no possible way more than one person could have concurrently had these same species-elevating insights! THESE TAKES ARE TOO HOT!

— Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) July 27, 2015

Nevertheless, stealing Twitter jokes is serious business. Many comedians have complained that their funny tweets have been copied and pasted by other users, who pass the jokes off as their own.

Twitter is legally obligated to act on plagiarism on the site under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Users can file DMCA requests when they see their tweets being stolen.

Twitter user and freelance writer Olga Lexell filed a complaint when she saw her Twitter jokes being copied. "Twitter has been acting appropriately. They're deleting copycat tweets and replacing it with text that the tweet has been withheld "in response to a report from the copyright holder."

"I simply explained to Twitter that as a freelance writer I make my living writing jokes (and I use some of my tweets to test out jokes in my other writing)," Lexell explained. "I then explained that as such, the jokes are my intellectual property, and that the users in question did not have my permission to repost them without giving me credit."

These are the Conan jokes in question: