[image-1]Ohio poet Stanley Gebhardt is suing Insane Clown Posse over claims that band member Violent J outright stole one of Gebhardt’s poems.

The full civil suit is embedded below.

Gebhardt says that he wrote and copyrighted “But You Didn’t” in 1993. It appeared in A 2nd Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Years later, though, Gebhardt argues that Violent J read the poem verbatim in a Youtube video titled “Violent J’s Poem.”

One Youtube commenter noted: “Man thats song deep shit Man :(” Another echoed the sentiment: “thats some deep shit right their”

The video went up in 2007, though Gebhardt didn’t find it until 2015.

Gebhardt is seeking damages and infringer profits. It’s not clear if ICP ever took this poem to the stage or the studio and/or profited off of it. We’ve got a theory…

YouTube video

Stanley Gebhardt v. Insane Clown Posse by sandyatscene on Scribd


This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2017.

Eric Sandy is an award-winning Cleveland-based journalist. For a while, he was the managing editor of Scene. He now contributes jam band features every now and then.

2 replies on “An Ohio Poet is Suing Insane Clown Posse Over Copyright Infringement”

  1. The reason they usually get away with this is, to hold them accountable, you also have to admit that ICP and Juggalos think you’re a good poet. It’s far too humiliating for most of the victims, who were too busy fighting off the suicidal tendencies resulting from being plagiarized by rapping clowns to sue anyway

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