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Dance Copyright Enforced by DMCA
goombah99 writes "The "creator" of the Dance move known as the electric slide has filed a DMCA based takedown notice for videos he deems to infringe and because they show "bad dancing". He is also seeking compensation from the use of the dance move at a wedding celebration shown on the Ellen Degeneres Show. Next up, the Funky Chicken, the moonwalk, and the Hustle? More seriously, does the DMCA have any limit on its scope?"
True, but apparently you can copyright choreography:
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
The summary for this story is just weird. The DMCA is just the method of enforcement, because the performance is being displayed online.
Choreography is just one of the items that are protected by copyright, which is listed in 17 USC 102:
(a) Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Works of authorship include the following categories:
(1) literary works;
(2) musical works, including any accompanying words;
(3) dramatic works, including any accompanying music;
(4) pantomimes and choreographic works;
(5) pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;
(6) motion pictures and other audiovisual works;
(7) sound recordings; and
(8) architectural works.
This statute was last revised in 1990. The DMCA did not add anything to it. I don't know how long choreography has been protected by copyright, but I would gamble that it's been at least fifty years or so.
That's supposed to sound funny, by the way...
Help I'm a rock.
The "Happy Birthday to You" song, however, is still under copyright...
http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/birthday.asp
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
My understanding is that your DMCA takedown notice requires that you swear under penalties of purjury that you won the copyright in question.
So what's the penalty for purjury?
It's not really purjury. Since you're not required to register a work (in the US) in order to have a copyright over it, there is room for some gray area. While it's probably not going to be upheld in court, it would be difficult to prove that he's actually lying when he says he has a copyright on the dance move...he could very well believe that he does. Unless you can show that not only did somebody else do it first, but that he had some prior knowledge that it was done before him...
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
If anybody is wondering, the quote unquote correct way to perform The Electric Slide is available here.
Ace
The Electric Slide is made up of 1 unit of choreagraphy known as a phrase. Mostly these "phrases" are meant to match a specific phrase structure of a particular set of music. In general a phrase is 32 beats of music. The electric slide is a 32 beat phrase with an extra 4 beat rhythm break. Through the process of doing the dance the dancer starts facing one wall. At the end of the phrase the choreagrapher incorporated a 90 degree turn. So that by the time you have completed the phrase 4 times you will end up facing the same wall that you started in. Rinse and Repeat till the song ends. It is the dancing equivalent of a for loop.
Whoever choreagraphed this little peace of nostalgic heaven did a brilliant job. The dance is so easy that any grandma can do it in only a few minutes. She feels as if she is dancing just as well as the rest of the cool and hip people on the dance floor. She is getting exorcise. The younger set gets a lot of chances to be creative within the dances structure, yet still be part of a group.
In the late 70's and mid 80's a concurrence of events in American pop-culture created an environement that made this dance popular. The late 70's marked the end of the "hustle-era" and the mid 80's marked the "urban-cowboy" era. Line dancing was not extremely popular with the hustle dancing set but was just catching on when "Disco" was collectively pronounced dead by the American zeitgest. About the same time John Travolta again made a splash with his movie Urban Cowboy and a new dancing fad was born. Two-stepping and Line-dancing at the local "honky-tonk" was all the rage. The easiest of all the dances to learn was the Electric Slide. Soon after this confluence of events every budding dance teacher across the country rushed to put out content on the new hot medium of the day... Video Tape. I still see the dance prominently displayed on DVD's in the dollar bin at Half Priced Books all the time. The Electric Slide was in the right place at the right time to become the most popular line dance in history.
In my mind there is no question that the choreagraphy is indeed something worthy of being copyrighted. On the other hand it is quite debatable whether or not it has any real value. I don't know copyright law. But I can say that if I was faced with the decision of paying a liscence fee to the choreagrapher, I will just make up my own 32 beat phrase with a 1 quarter turn at the end and call it The Erotic Bump instead. It isn't that hard to do. For an overview of where line dancing is today view this link.... http://www.ucwdc.org/competition/linedances.shtm where you will find that not one of the choreagraphers is paid for their efforts. In the meantime Im going to go out to the salsa club and do the Macarena
The difference between registered and unregistered works is that statutory damages are available for registered works without having to prove actual damages. For infringements of unregistered works you are still entitlted to damages but only in an amount that you can actually prove.
Nope. In Queen's song, the bass line is completely contained within the first three beats of the measure ("dum dum dum da-da dum dum" etc... It's hard to write that out without notation) whereas with Ice Ice Baby, there's an extra bass note as a pickup to the measure on the second half of the fourth beat.
I need to go to bed now as I've expended my geek quota for the day.