You’ll recall that we ran an item or two about a gang of “cool hipsters” (Wired magazine’s characterization, certainly not ours) who were horrified at the prospect of stepping inside a comedy club to watch real standup comedy done by professionals. They were, instead, of the opinion that it was way cooler to watch amateurs going up onstage at the local chai dispensary and doing a standup version of karaoke. Naturally, we were horrified. And we ran an item on an NPR piece that spoke favorably of this phenomenon– and mentioned nothing about rights or royalties. Horror upon horror.

Then, we got the following email from Rob Liniger:

Dear Sheckymagazine.com Staff and Readers,

My Name is Rob Liniger and I am the president of Insonic Media™ …So what? Well my company launched a product called Jokeoke™. Hold on, before you start the hate spam, we are not the group of performers that you’ve read about. In addition to appropriating comedians’ material they have also ripped off our trademarked and service marked name. Apparently these Angry Waiters have no respect for any sort of intellectual property. That said, we do have a product called Jokeoke™ but it is a far different system than the standup version you’ve read about. In fact ours is billed more as a custom comedy TV channel for bars and restaurants to play on their televisions in the establishment.

Basically the system plays text jokes on a screen with an animated background. Primarily these jokes consist of one-liners, blonde jokes, lawyer jokes- – your basic laffy-taffy variety. In addition it also displays trivia questions. In between the content, ads are displayed for the bar. These ads can be anything the bar wants, promoting such things as happy hour, events, drink specials, etc. For the viewer it’s an entirely passive experience, just one more thing to catch their eye when curling is the only event being broadcast on ESPN 7. It’s a little hard to explain but if you go to our website and watch the demo, you’ll get a little glimpse.

So why do you care? Well the truth is we have always planned to have a standup version– again, before you blast me hear me out. My background is in the business music service industry for restaurants, retail, etc. So I am very familiar with licensing and royalties. Regardless of your personal feelings there is a market for Jokeoke™, and the hacks to try to mimic their favorite comedians will come out in droves. Prior to launching this however, our goal is to come to an agreement with the true artists and intellectual property owners of this material. In addition, we would like to come to a working relationship that creates standards that address the issues you and other comedians have. Issues such as not incorporating current acts and material; Issues such as paying or extending royalties for intellectual property and using a comedians likeness, etc.

Currently I am not familiar with a representative group that facilitates this type of application. If it’s music, I know to go to Harry Fox™, then ASCAP™, BMI™ and SESAC™. Our goal would be to promote comedians old and new; To create a new revenue source that pays for their work for years to come. Just as an example if a comedian got $.25 per DVD sold and I was able to push 2 million, that’s $500,000 more than the intellectual property owner had before. That’s just one example, there are many ways to develop this, and the plain and simple truth is that this won’t go away, so we might as well begin a dialogue now.

From my desk I see this as a benefit to comedians. Yes people will deliver the material poorly, yes some will make a mockery but it also will promote the industry. If done properly this can be a win-win-win for all. Now, with that off my chest I’m open to discussion, death threats, what have you. But let’s talk about it, let’s try to define, let’s mold it into something that can benefit us all.

Best Regards,

Rob Liniger
President
Insonic Media Corp.
www.jokeoke.com