I do not think Dan is correct that dance choreography is not copyrightable. Dan, I don't know where you got that information, but nothing I know about copyright law gives me that impression. I guess you could argue that contra dances are not sufficiently "original," but the standard for originality is so low in copyright law that I don't think that would be a winning argument, or even close to it.
And Sam is also correct that these dances are automatically copyrighted, so long as they were written after 1978. Unless it's a dance you've never written down in any form or have never recorded, then you've copyrighted your dance, whether you want to or not. If it's a dance from before 1978, then unless there's a notice of copyright on the dance, you're probably good. I don't think there generally have been notices of copyright on dances that I've seen published (obviously copyrighting the compilation of dances is a totally different issue). As far as I can tell, the way most callers call most dances is a breach of copyright, and they could potentially be sued for a lot of money for it (there's a statutory minimum of $750 per breach, which really adds up). Don V. also brought up a slightly different point. Somebody copying your cards themselves is a wrong that really has little to do with copyright. It wouldn't be ok for somebody to, say, go through your purse to look at what's in there just because you leave it lying around, and searching through your calling cards seems to be a lot like that. I am not a copyright lawyer, though I did study some small amount of US copyright law in law school. I don't think anybody is particularly likely to be sued for copyright issues, but it might be safe to either stick with dances that you've written (even if somebody else has written the same dance before, that's still ok so long as you really came up with it independently), dances you've been granted a license to use by the choreographer, or dances with copylefts or whatnot. -Dave On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 2:22 PM, Sam Whited <[email protected]> wrote: > On 09/13/2013 02:10 PM, Perry Shafran wrote: > > Should I care? > > I personally don't think so (as you said, that's the point of writing > dances for most folks, not to make money, but to distribute them as > widely as possible and make sure people can enjoy them). And that's > exactly why you should use a copyleft license. > > > What am I being protected from if I license or copyright my dances? > > What am I at risk from if I don't? > > Traditional copyright law is designed to protect the author from having > their works (and revenue stream) stolen. The modern copyleft (not a > legalterm) trend is designed to take copyright law, and turn it into a > way to allow others to use those works in an appropriate manner. In > other words, it's not about protecting you (the author), it's about > making sure people know that you don't mind it if they use your works. > In other words it's about giving others legal rights, not about > protecting yourself. > > Also, just to clarify, you don't have to `copyright' your dances. They > are automatically copyrighted the moment you write them (in the USA; > might not be the same elsewhere); you and you alone own the copyright by > default. Licensing them is just a way to use copyright law and release > some of the rights that you have under the law. It means your dances can > be freely (and legally) shared in more ways than they could before. In > some cases it also allows others to make derivative works based on your > work, and sometimes requires that any derivative works also follow a > similar license (lots of GNU licenses work this way). > > Another way to explain it is that, when you tell someone that they can > call your work at a dance, you've just made it free as in beer (gratis) > whereas if you license them using a CC, GNU, etc. license, you've made > them free as in freedom (libre). For a good discussion of the > differences between gratis and libre, see this wikipedia article: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_vs._libre > > —Sam > > P.S. Don Veino's thread `Norms/Ethics of Dance Choreography Sharing' > might be a better place for this sort of discussion. > > -- > Sam Whited > pub 4096R/EC2C9934 > https://samwhited.com/contact > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers > -- David Casserly (cell) 781 258-2761
