Compiling a Guide of Jokes -- Legal?

[The Oilman]

I want to have a tiny collection of jokes to include with a product of mine.

Is it legal to take them off the internet and package them as a free bonus with my product?

[talewins]

jokes (less than 100 words) cannot be copyrighted.
Anecdones, less than 500 words, you had better let them alone or get legal counsel before taking.
Best thing to do is pretend jokes are plr and rewrite them.

[Nonny]

Here is an interesting post on the subject by a copyright attorney:

The Patry Copyright Blog: Jokes and Copyright

From the court cases he cites, it doesn't appear that there is any hard-and-fast minimum number of words that makes a joke copyrightable.

Compendium II of Copyright Office Practices § 420.02 states: “Jokes and other comedy routines may be registered if they contain at least a certain minimum amount of original expression in tangible form. Short quips and slang expressions consisting of no more than short expressions are not registrable.” In other words, jokes are to be considered under the ordinary originality standard applied to all other material.

What have the courts held? In Jeff Foxworthy v. Custom Tees, Inc., 879 F. Supp. 1200, 1217–1219 (N.D. Ga. 1995), the court gave very expansive to Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck if …” one-line jokes, jokes which seem to fit within the final, non-protectible part of the Compendium, taken individually. The court however, saw things differently

And Jay Leno and a bunch of other comics sued a joke book compiler, who settled out of court.
Joke book editor settles copyright suit with Leno, NBC - USATODAY.com

[talewins]

I did mis spoke when I said jokes under 100 words could not be copyrighted. The proper word should have been "conveniently protected." One Dick Van Dyke show revolved around his terror of having inadvertently stolen someone else's skit. His boss picked up the phone and called the other comedian, threatening to sue him for using HIS joke, then went ahead and used it to show he wasn't angry. Now, the interesting thing there is that the writers of the show smugly stole the other comedian's skit and ran it on the show, using it as an example of how hazardous it is to steal other material. And here I am taking the whole show as an example for using short jokes. Case in point..

A Sunday Lip-Service Participant told the minister of his favorite church, "I sure did enjoy your sermon today." The minister frowned for a moment then responded, ‘That's too bad. That means you didn’t understand it."

You can probably get away with publishing one of these. Two you should take more precautions to rewrite. With ten of them from the same source showing up on your bonus, you would definitely need to give a lawyer some billable hours time. But it is all too easy to dress, redress and caress the material you find on the web. For examples:

Every one of us must be inundated daily with quite long and often illustrated original material being pilfered from major publications then forwarded to all their friends without preamble. There is no way all of these senders can be prosecuted.

I don't suggest anyone join the throng of petty thieves breaking International law, but you can, especially if you have a violent disagreement with the moral of the story, RESPOND TO IT in your own words and publish that diatribe. I do that quite often in a humorous vein on talewins.com/bulletin if you want to see some examples.

With jokes you really should rewrite them as if they were plr. Step one, take your source from old joke books and modernize them. I can never read an old joke book without coming up with 20 or 30 new jokes that are quite original. Or, second option -- quote the joke and spin off from there into an anecdote from your own experience. talewins.com/humor/ shows some of my jokes that you are quite welcome to copy, and that includes the original epigram cartoons that I have produced.. like the one of a buzzing rattlesnake that is proclaiming how he keeps the peace: STRIKE FIRST AND ASK QUESTIONS LATER, THAT'S MY THEORY. Hey, it makes good decoration, too.

Yes, it is always interesting to note what the law is, and it does keep lawyers in business to pick a fine nit comb to pieces. The major reason for passing laws is to keep lawyers busy, able to produce billable hours even while they are taking a shower.

Especially in today's environment we need to remember that court decisions can be bought,
plus the threat of a lawsuit can usually be responded to only by the wealthy. I lost my second largest web site domain because I could not afford to contest a frivolous trademark infringement challenge. (I had the word "DEPOT" in the name, for crying out loud) Then 15 -- 20 years ago we lost a land case that went all the way up to the State Supreme Court because the other side claimed they had not received legal notice of a tax auction listing of their property. The original, challenging letter from the state fell out of the opposing lawyer's folders IN COURT, and we still lost.

Another example: Ever since I crossed the big million threshold in web site traffic I've been contacted by the legal-minded that I MUST mend my ways about providing proper navigation around my site and MUST restrict the number of fonts on my pages to less than 7 -- and this maximum figure includes color variations. Oil Man's Wild West of the Internet is shutting down. The days of enjoying the freedom of doing what works are just about over. David Crockett is now checking out overnight accommodations at the Alamo motel.

[Marhelper]

There are plenty of places on the internet to find "Public Domain" jokes and then you can do what you want with them.