On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 2:00 PM, Sam Whited <[email protected]> wrote:
> choreographic works have been copyrightable since 1978
It's not clear whether an individual contra dance, as a series of
standard figures, is original enough to fall under copyright. While
choreography can be copyrighted, as you say, the question is whether a
new contra dance represents sufficient "choreographic authorship".
This 2012 statement of policy from the copyright office has some
details:
Simple dance routines do not represent enough original
choreographic authorship to be copyrightable. Id. Moreover, the
selection, coordination or arrangement of dance steps does not
transform a compilation of dance steps into a choreographic work unless
the resulting work amounts to an integrated and coherent compositional
whole. The Copyright Office takes the position that a selection,
coordination, or arrangement of functional physical movements such as
sports movements, exercises, and other ordinary motor activities alone
do not represent the type of authorship intended to be protected under
the copyright law as a choreographic work.
-- http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-06-22/html/2012-15235.htm
Other things that might be interesting:
*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AContra_dance#Copyright_and_Social_Dance_Choreography_in_the_US
* http://www.copyright.org.au/admin/cms-acc1/_images/9990319194f3b320fa4716.pdf
(It's about Line Dancing, and is Australian not US, but there's been a
lot of international harmonization of copyright laws and contra and
line dances are probably similar enough to be in the same category
legally.)
* https://www.eff.org/cases/electric-slide-litigation (There was
litigation in the US over the Electric Slide, but it ended with a
settlement.)
* http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14083197885283774149
(But: I'm not a lawyer, just another programmer interested in this stuff.)
Jeff
