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Every once in a while, a controversy arises in the comedy world and when it happens, all of my non-comedian friends and family want to know my opinion about it, so I have to reluctantly turn off the porn and surf over to find out about it.

Last week, a shit storm resulted when Carlos Mencia and Joe Rogan got into it on stage at L.A.'s Comedy Store. Rogan accused Mencia of stealing material. The argument later continued outside the building. Someone took video of the whole thing and it wound up on the internet, (briefly, and I'll get to that in a minute.)

The result was that Rogan was banned from the Comedy Store indefinitely and he was subsequently dropped by his management.

Joe Rogan is best known for being the host of Fear Factor, playing the character, "Joe" on News Radio and his club appearances doing standup and guest spots on the Howard Stern Show.

Rogan has been outspoken in the past and frequently refers to Mencia as "a hack."

Hack -n. 1. a person, as an artist or writer, who exploits, for money, his or her creative ability or training in the production of dull, unimaginative, and trite work; one who produces banal and mediocre work in the hope of gaining commercial success in the arts. 2. a professional who renounces or surrenders individual independence, integrity, belief, etc., in return for money or other reward in the performance of a task normally thought of as involving a strong personal commitment: a political hack.

Joe's position is that Carlos is a half-German, half-Honduran, named Ned Holness that is mistakenly perceived by his own audience being a Mexican-American.

Joe's position happens to be true.

But the issue at the center of the controversy is whether or not Mencia steals material. I don't honestly know. I've seen his act and it didn't do much for me. Audiences seem to enjoy him, but comedians tend to look at comedy performances with a more critical eye. While I didn't hear any jokes that I immediately recognized as belonging to someone else, the caliber of jokes was such that someone else could have thought of the same premise and punch line.

One of the jokes in question that Mencia is accused of stealing goes something like this:

So now they want to build a huge wall between the U.S. and Mexico? Who are they gonna get to build it? Illegal Immigrants!

Not a good joke. It's also a thought that has occurred to a lot of people. I'm sure you've thought of it and you're probably not a comedy writer. Yet I have heard no fewer than five comedians do this exact or a similar joke. A joke like this, (and/or the comedian who tells it) can be perceived as being hack, not because it was necessarily stolen from anyone, but because anyone could have come up with it.

Don't get me wrong, parallel innovation occurs. Two comics who have never seen each other sometimes come up with the same or a similar joke.

But there's something else that goes on in comedy, something far more sinister. You see, as a comedian, you don't really have any recourse if someone steals a joke from you. You can get mad about it. You can call them on it, but at the end of the day, you can't really do anything to punish them for it.

Until now.

Because Rogan had the stones (and Rogan had a lot at stake) to call Mencia out, things have changed.

I like to think that right now, somewhere in the Midwest, there's a kid who wants to become a comedian. He's written some material and he's been to a few open mikes. He's been around the game long enough to see that people get away with stealing material. In fact, some people are really successful because of it. Some of them even have a T.V. show. And while this kid is trying to decide between doing the right thing and being honest with his material or taking the easy way and lifting jokes from others because, "Hey, why not?"

Then this kid sees these videos that are bouncing around the internet and he says to himself, "Oh, that's why not. I could be called out for stealing and the video could wind up on the internet and I would be humiliated."

Finally, I think that if anyone were wrongly accused of something and there were a video of them defending themselves, I would think they would want as many people as possible to see that video so that they could be exonerated in the eyes of the public. Yet when I went to the website where these videos were available last week, there is no video and there is a message that reads:

"This video has been taken down, due to a copyright claim by Carlos Mencia."

I don't know about you, but I could really go for a nice, hot bowl of irony right about now.

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