I have been thinking about the whole concept of copyrights in the field of clowning. the following is intended to provoke discussion. Please feel free to comment, ask questions or whatever.

As clowns we each have our own clown personality and yet we conform to the same personality types and makeup patterns. Each of us being unique have selected our own set of colours, makeup shapes and costumes. In doing so we still conform to the basic clown types while at the same time having unique personalities.

We make use of many public domain skits and gags, even swapping our own material on occasion and yet each of us still remain unique. As I have seen in workshops, you can take many individual clowns give them the same basic material and each one will present it differently. As clowns and as human beings we are unique.

From the above one reaches the conclusion that any skit will change according to the personality of the clown using it. Once it has changed is it no longer the same skit because it has been modified or is it the same as the origional because the core material is largely unchanged?

You should never copy some one work, but most clowns will allow you to use their ideas but they ask that you change it to suit your clown and not try and copy them, as each person is unique. I work hard to plan our routines and skits and I don't mine sharing, but I also would not appriecate some one passing it on as one of theirs. Some clowns do have their clown copywrited and I you can register your clown face. I've not done either. I'm in a small town and I don't plan to ;hit the big time. Pinky told us that she was copywritten and that she has a doll designed after her, and she's fairly well known. She said that there was some one in NC who has copied her costume and was going around performing as Pinky. Things like this could hurt your rep. if the clown was not as good as you.

My post was intended to provoke discussion regarding the moral copyright of skits leaving the legal issue alone. However your comment about copying another clowns identity is a very important issue which deserves a thread of it's own. The whole issue of identity theft is beyond my origional intentions. This thread was intended to focus on skits with the assumption that they are being adapted rather than copied.

My personal opinion is that we should be free to adapt skits which are in the public domain and keep away from any other clowns signature skits (eg. Roly Baine's Slackrope Skit) because to make any kind of use of them would be breaking a moral copyright. It is the moral copyright issue that was my main focus when prompting this discussion.

For example I was planning to make use of a ladder in a skit to show a Biblical message. I then met a local clown who used a ladder as his main trademark skit. Although my use of a ladder was a little different, I decided it was not fair to use the skit and abandoned it.

Having talked to him, neither of us thought it's use would have broken any copyright laws. However, I feel that a moral copyright would have been broken if I had continued to develop that particular skit.

I tend to agree that we should use open domain skits and adjust them to our character or the event we're performing at. Unfortunately, there is precious little to choose from, it seems. The conference I went to this weekend encouraged us to write our own skits and to develop that skill. It's in each of us. We just need to let it out! Grin.
Jubilee

Yes, skit ideas should be original. I've looked to cartoons for skits. The funny papers, you want good skit ideas go to a busy park on a saturday. and take a notebook. Put your own twist on a skit and make it your own. But classic skits should be IMO kept alive. Like the Clown car with all the clowns, the Barber shop, the clown fire depatment, Emmett Kelly and the spot light, of the peanut and the sledge hammer. To me this is like a bridge across generations to keep these alive. But for the Love of Bozo, adapt themt o modern times. I guess what I'm getting at is classic comedy is classic because it is not bound to certain generations only. We can keep adapting skits, keeping them modern but respecting the originators.
Do I think it is a good idea to verbatim copy a skit? Maybe to help learn the inticacies of timing but, make it your own.

I've aways been a very creative person.

I have been writing since I was thirteen, mostly fiction shorties, and even some really decent poems for Valentines for my wife, but I am my own worse critic. This is true even for the clowning stuff. Sometimes it just doesn't seem good enough...

Before I go off on a rant about that, however, I have to say that so far I've not had much trouble in the copying of other people's skits. I do like refering them to time to time so far for the generalities of clowning attributes. Instead of doing an actual act, tho, I prefer walkarounds. I feed off the energy and unpredictability of the other people around me, and it seems to work much better for me...

I agree Bips, I tend to work better feeding off of the audience. I think it's exiting to "Fly by the seat of the pants" as it were..
It helps you learn to think on your feet, I think some of the best snappy come backs come off the cuff like that

That makes three of us. I always feel more alive when I am able to leave a skit behind and interact with an audience. Audiences like that too because they see you are interested in them. But then I get a lot of practice interacting in an unscripted environment when I am working at Pizza Hut.