As a former standup comic, a few words about all of the "comic thief" posts lately... It's more common than you think. (XPost on request)

For a couple years I was a professional stand-up comic. This was back in the 90s, so who wasn't one back then?. And by professional I mean "full-time job," not the "I do drunk open-mic nights" type.

There was an understanding in the industry. If your shit is funny, it will be stolen. It was part of the game. But just like musicians or any other artists, if someone else does it better, then you have to cede to them. If you're a singer, someone covers your song and effin kills it, you let them. Do you think anyone calls Johnny Cash a "song thief" when he recorded NIN's "Hurt?" Of course not. Because he took the material and made it his. Comedy is the same way. One of my best sets included a bit (about Pokemon and orphans) that killed every time. One guy who I knew from the circuit came up to me and told me that he was using my bit and asked me if I wanted to compare notes. I watched him perform and he took it to a whole new level. Never used it again because he performed it so much better than I ever could. The bastard.

I'm guilty of it too. You usually have to when you're starting. When you get up there for the first time at open-mics and you're trying to find your voice, new content is one of the the last things on your mind. You spend about two minutes making it up and about two months working it into your act. That story that always makes your friends piss themselves laughing? It'll be about six weeks before you realize the audience thinks it (and you) are retarded for using it.

Hey, have a funny thought in the shower? Jot that down. Maybe you can stretch that one thought out for 30, 40 seconds. If you're really talented, a minute. You'll need at least a dozen of those thoughts to pad out an 8 minute set for open-mic, and trust me, to make a name for yourself you need some new stuff each time you get up there. Ready to open for someone? Those sets are usually 23 or 34 minutes. You do the math, because math is hard. Short of it is, at some point every SUC hears something, makes them laugh, fits in with their style, and they use it. It's more of the norm than you think. Especially since most watch a lot of other comics, then has a funny thought later and can't remember if it was original or not. That happens too. And honestly, it takes a lot more work to fit someone else's joke into your set. They have different timing, style and personality. It's when you start headlining that almost all your material is original, and that's probably still riddled with borrowed ideas that you tweaked, rewrote, rewrote again, tested, rewrote, reworked to fit in somewhere else, tested. rewrote, lather, rinse, repeat.

Now it's different when all you use only "borrowed" material. We all knew SUCs like that, ones that if we saw them in the audience we would not use our "A" material. There are comics out there that only know how to regurgitate. Those people suck. Especially the ones that become super-famous doing it. We all know who they are, but luckily they're rare.

There is one comic that did get famous, is still performing, and I've heard him recently use one of my 15 year old jokes. And it always gets a laugh. I get a little jealous when I hear him use it, but a little proud too.

tl;dr Jokes get borrowed, reworked and reused all the time. It happens. But if you're talented and can make it work in your set, more power to you.

EDIT:Formatting