More discussion on contra dance copyrightability, which I didn't include before because I didn't want to send us off into legal land: http://www.jefftk.com/p/can-you-copyright-a-contra-dance
On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 5:00 PM, Mark Jones via Callers <[email protected]> wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Mark Jones <[email protected]> > Date: Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 11:09 AM > Subject: Re: [Callers] Giant dance database? > To: Maia McCormick <[email protected]> > > > This is a GIANT project. > > People associated with CDSS have had thoughts of undertaking such a > database. Nils Fredland had initiated a start to the idea about four > or five years ago, but it is not clear if it has a prime mover right > now. > > Copyright: > In the US, "social dance steps" are not considered copyrightable, but > the concept has not been tested in court. This idea that "social dance > steps" are not copyrightable is a part of the legislative history of > the 1980 US copyright revision, but NOT a part of the actual statute. > Any dance published in the US before the copyright law change in 1980 > is in the public domain absolutely, as no dance IN THE US was > copyrightable, unless "an integral part of a (copyrightable) play". > I predict the law will be settled after some exercise class instructor > successfully (or fails to) successfully win a suit against someone for > copying their "social dance steps" outside of class. It seems to me > the ony population that desires to restrict the use of social dance > steps instruction would be exercise instructors, and yoga instructors, > and the like that have an investment in maintaining the secrecy of > their choreography, since they have paying population attending for > their secret "social dance steps". > > Copyright laws in all other countries are unique to that country, and > typically much stricter and more favorable to the composer / > choreographer, for social dance. > > Issues for the database and searching include that one must create a > canonical form of all of the entered dances, since nearly every contra > dance move is capable of being described in more than one way, hence a > disaster for searching and parsing moves in a collective way. > > I can speak from experience about creating a cannonical version of a > dance, as a co-collaborator of Larry Jennings's compilation, "Give and > Take" [1], that it takes a lot of effort to make the dances uniform, > so that they can be properly searched, and that was done for the > dances collected in his book, some times to the consternation of the > authors that permitted their dance to be collected and published in > the book. > > The conclusion others have come to for such a project, in terms of > cannonical searchable versions, is to have the original dance text > married to a cannonical "uniformized" version that may be searchable > in comparison to other dances. > > [1] http://www.neffa.org/give_and_take.html > > ~Mark Jones > > > > On Mon, Jul 28, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Maia McCormick via Callers > <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> I'm currently in programming school casting about for programming projects, >> and I had the idea of a giant searchable contradance database, where you can >> filter by move combination, etc. >> >> My question: is this something people would be interested in having? Or does >> it run the risk of infringing on intellectual property, or shortchanging >> dance writers on book sales, etc.? (Obviously no dances would be included >> without the author's permission, but it may be that making a huge ton of >> dances freely available and searchable in one place online would be a death >> blow to published books of dances, or have some other negative effect I'm >> not foreseeing right now...) >> >> Anyway: does anyone have any thoughts on this project? >> >> Cheers, >> Maia >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Callers mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net >> > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.sharedweight.net/listinfo.cgi/callers-sharedweight.net
