What You Need To Know About The Fat Jew's Book Leak
Today, A Twitter user with the handle @updog7 scanned and posted Josh Otrovsky's (AKA The Fat Jew) entire book. Twitter exploded with fav's (sorry, likes) and spiteful praise. Why was a book leak being celebrated? Let's rewind a few months.
In August, it was reported that Ostrovsky had signed with the CAA and had a pilot in development at Comedy Central. He's known for stealing jokes from comedians on Twitter and reposting them to his 6.5 million Instagram followers. He's said he makes up to $6,000 per brand mention on his Instagram account, which is fueled by stolen jokes from Twitter. Let's walk through the Internet's collective outrage starting with a primer on plagiarism and copyright law:
WILL THIS CHANGE ANYTHING?
The Fat Jew, Plagiarism and Copyright Law
Is this a game changer for joke copying? People have always copied and retold jokes and will continue to do so. However, with the advent of the Internet and social media, it is much easier to identify, track and document copying by professional comedians, writers and others who seek to profit from such actions. The numerous complaints providing evidence of Ostrovsky's copying that led to the cancellation of his contract with Comedy Central and the recent lawsuit brought against Conan O'Brien has heightened awareness of the issue and will likely prompt increased vigilance on the part of comedians and joke writers. Perhaps we will also see the adoption of more formal due diligence processes to reduce exposure to claims of joke copying. At a minimum, people now realize that this topic is more than merely a laughing matter.
[Forbes]
'I WOULD LOVE TO GIVE CREDIT'
After A Few Days Of Silence, The Fat Jew Speaks To Vulture
"I'm working to add attribution to every one of my posts, and will continue to do so. My email address is up. I urge people to reach out and say, "That's my thing." I would love to give credit. I want people to shine on social media, I always have. And I will never again post something that doesn't have attribution, because I realize now that when the stage is large enough, and the voice is large enough, these things matter."
[Vulture]
THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT STEALING JOKES
Patton Oswalt Isn't Amused
HERE'S A USEFUL #TBT
Twitter Is Using Copyright Law To Bust Joke Thieves
Imitation is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery, but for comedians on Twitter it's a pain in the ass. Joke theft is rampant, with "parody" accounts and spambots racking up thousands of followers by tweeting stolen jokes as their own. But now Twitter is helping people bust joke-stealers.
If you file a DMCA complaint with Twitter about a stolen joke, the company will treat it like other copyright infringement requests, and may hide tweets if it decides that the tweets stole your punchline.
And later:
Now if only there was a way to permanently ban The Fat Jew from social media…
[Gizmodo]
joke 'aggregator'
The Fat Jew, Josh Ostrovsky, Signs With CAA
Ostrovsky, 30, has parlayed social media fame — he has more than 5.6 million followers on his Instagram account, @TheFatJewish — into a full-fledged entertainment career. In July he signed a modeling contract with One Management Agency; he recently launched wine brand White Girl Rosé and will publish his first book, Money Pizza Respect with Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, later this year.
Ostrovsky is also looking for opportunities to bring his brand of comedy to television screens and currently has a pilot in development at Comedy Central.
'HE'S PURE TRASH'
Someecards Writer Maura Quint On Ostrovsky's Plagiarism
A LONG RAP SHEET
A Twitter User Puts Together A List Of The Top Jokes Ostrovsky Stole From The Internet
Kevin Kelly put together this list which was viewed over 17,000 times.
Comedians Take To Twitter To Shame Ostrovsky And Comedy Central For Working With Him
your tweets have been answered
After A Weekend Of Tweetstorms, Comedy Central Pulls The Plug On The Fat Jew's Pilot
We reached out to Comedy Central to ask about the status of Ostrovsky's pilot, and a rep confirmed with us that the network no longer has a project in development with him.
FINGERPOINTING
Instagram Created The Fat Jew
The only working hyperlink Instagram now offers is a single URL field in users' bios. This has led to the widely adopted workaround known as "Link in the bio"—a user mentions something in a post, and if they want to direct viewers elsewhere on the web, they just say "Link in the bio" and swap out whatever is in that field as necessary. It's clunky as hell and requires constant maintenance. There is surely a better way: Tumblr, for instance, adopted a dedicated source field in its CMS, so that even if users deleted text from reblogs, the citation link remained constant and attached to the post. Instagram could add similar field in its upload process, but doing so would be an indirect admission/encouragement of users posting things that they didn't create themselves. But instead, currently, even if the Fat Jew were diligent about tracking down the sources of his content, he would hardly have anywhere to make it apparent to his followers.
[The Awl]
THEY'RE NOT LAUGHING
Here's What The People He Stole From Have To Say
My roommate sent me a text message when he saw it. My first reaction was "how the hell did he find that?" It wasn't on Reddit or anything. I had just tweeted it about 24 hours before he stole it. I very upset that he took the time to crop out my Twitter handle. It shows that it's not like he's forgetting to credit, he's actively trying to hide it.
