Comedians are not amused when their jokes are stolen, and for that rea

Passage A

Comedians are not amused when their jokes are
stolen, and for that reason we might expect joke-stealing
disputes to ripen into lawsuits occasionally. Copyright
is the most relevant body of law; formally, it applies to
(5) jokes and comedic routines. Yet copyright infringement
lawsuits between rival comedians are all but unheard
of, despite what appears to be a persistent practice of
joke stealing among stand-up comedians. The
nonexistence of such lawsuits is a product of both practical
(10) considerations that render the cost of enforcing
the formal law prohibitively expensive, and legal
hurdles that make success difficult and uncertain in
lawsuits relating to joke stealing. In the end, copyright
law simply does not provide comedians with a cost-
(15) effective way of protecting their comedic material.

Conventional intellectual property wisdom holds
that absent formal legal protection, there would be
scant production of creative works, as potential
creators would be deterred by the unlikelihood of
(20) recouping the cost of their creations. If there is no
effective legal protection against joke theft, then why
do thousands of comedians keep cranking out new
material night after night?

The answer to this question is that, in stand-up
(25) comedy, social norms substitute for intellectual
property law. Taken as a whole, this norms system
governs a wide array of issues that generally parallel
those ordered by copyright law. These norms are not
merely hortatory. They are enforced with sanctions,
(30) including simple badmouthing and refusals to work
with an offending comedian. These sanctions, while
extralegal, can cause serious reputational harm to an
alleged joke thief, and may substantially hamper a
comedian's career. Using this informal system,
(35) comedians are able to assert ownership of jokes,
regulate their use and transfer, impose sanctions on
transgressors, and maintain substantial incentives to
invest in new material.

Passage B

Accomplished chefs consider their recipes to be
(40) a very valuable form of intellectual property. At the
same time, recipes are not a form of innovation that is
effectively covered by current intellectual property
laws. Recipes are rarely patentable, and combinations
of ingredients cannot be copyrighted. Legal protections
(45) are potentially available via trade secrecy laws, but
chefs very seldom use them. Instead, three implicit
social norms are operative among chefs, and together
these norms function in a manner quite similar to
law-based intellectual property systems.

(50) First, a chef must not copy another chef's recipe
innovation exactly. The function of this norm is
analogous to patenting in that the community
acknowledges the right of a recipe inventor to exclude
others from practicing his or her invention, even if all
(55) the information required to do so is publicly available.
A second norm mandates that, if a chef reveals
recipe-related secret information to a colleague, that
colleague must not pass the information on to others
without permission. This norm gives a chef a property

(60) right similar to that attainable via a contract under
trade secrecy law. A third norm is that colleagues must
credit developers of significant recipes as the authors
of that information. This norm operates in a manner
analogous to copyright protection.

1. Both passages are primarily concerned with investigating which one of the following topics?

(A) the legal protections available to creators of intellectual property
(B) the connection between the enforcement of social norms and the incentives these norms provide to creators of intellectual property
(C) the extent to which the rights of creators of intellectual property must be balanced against the social value of making that property publicly available
(D) the practical considerations that prompt creators of intellectual property to forgo legal protections of their work
(E) the ways in which social norms can take the place of laws in protecting intellectual property


2. Passage A, but not passage B, discusses

(A) the relationship of social norms to intellectual property laws
(B) the evolution of social norms
(C) the enforcement of social norms
(D) the limitations of social norms
(E) the impact of social norms on creative output


3. Which one of the following questions is addressed by passage A but not by passage B with respect to the group of professionals discussed?

(A) How can members of the group share their creative work with colleagues without sacrificing their intellectual property rights?
(B) Why do members of the group usually choose not to make use of the legal protections that are potentially available to them?
(C) To what extent can patent law protect the creative output of members of the group?
(D) What is a form of creative output that members of the group regard as intellectual property?
(E) What social norms prohibit members of the group from violating the intellectual property rights of other members of the group?


4. The author of passage A would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements?

(A) Comedians rarely acknowledge the degree to which their own comedic material is influenced by the work of their peers.
(B) Comedians would be more likely to protect their comedic material through copyright law if they had greater assurance that they could successfully bring infringement lawsuits against perceived perpetrators of joke theft.
(C) Creative rights to jokes and comedic routines should be protected by trade secrecy law rather than by copyright law.
(D) The system of social norms operative among comedians is not robust enough to allow comedians to be properly compensated for the expenses they incur when developing new comedic material.
(E) In the particular context of stand-up comedy. no informal system for protecting intellectual property can be as effective as a formal system.


5. Which one of the following statements is most strongly supported by information given in the passages?

(A) Intellectual property violations are more frequent among comedians than among chefs.
(B) A more elaborate system of social norms has developed among chefs than among comedians.
(C) Chefs enjoy more significant legal protections of their intellectual property than do comedians.
(D) Most comedians and chefs are satisfied with current intellectual property laws.
(E) Comedians and chefs both derive some professional benefit from observing the social norms of their profession.


6. The relationship described in passage A as holding between comedians and copyright law is most analogous to the relationship described in passage B as holding between chefs and which one of the following?

(A) intellectual property
(B) patent law
(C) the combinations of ingredients in a recipe
(D) trade secrecy
(E) law social norms


7. The author of passage A would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements?

(A) The social norms that are operative among comedians make it possible for individual comedians to recoup the costs associated with developing a comedic routine.
(B) Comedians should increase their reliance on copyright law as a means of protecting their comedic routines.
(C) Most professional comedians are largely unconcerned with the expense involved in developing new comedic material.
(D) Law-based intellectual property systems generally work less efficiently than systems based on social norms.
(E) Existing copyright law should be modified to make it more cost effective for comedians to protect their comedic material through legal means.


8. Which one of the following, if true, would most clearly support the argument made in passage B?

(A) There is no social norm preventing chefs from using colleagues' recipes as inspiration, as long as those recipes are not copied exactly.
(B) Chefs are significantly more likely to deny requested information to colleagues whom they believe have violated the operative social norms.
(C) Recipes published in cookbooks are protected by copyright law from being published in other cookbooks.
(D) The community of chefs is too small to effectively enforce sanctions against those who violate the operative social norms.
(E) In practice it is virtually impossible to determine whether a chef has copied a colleague's recipe exactly or has instead independently developed that recipe.