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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?"
Yes that's true. On that topic, wasn't there some lawyers a few years back that were trying to copyright special signature moves by basketball players? I guess it never went anywhere since I never saw any stories of litigation, but I guess they would have played the choreography angle. What a mess.
Robert Oschler - RobotsRule.com
Long before the DMCA, copyright subsisted in choreography (and thus dance moves) both at a statutory and common law level. I don't have my IP text with me to give cites, but if someone could help out I'd appreciate it.
Has anyone else noticed that he is using that clip of copyrighted characters on his website doing line dancing. How much do you want to bet he doesn't have permission from the copyright holders to show that. Also, the music he has on line, the video he has on-line and THE VIDEO HE IS SELLING all contain the song The Electric Slide which he is NOT the copyright holder for.
One quick call to the RIAA and he is done for. Fight fire with Fire.
The only sad part is that I find myself defending line-dancing of any kind.
Not the tune, just the lyrics. That's why Futurama sang a different variant in the episode with Nibbler's Birthday.
One of these days, I may very well be able to post on slashdot without citing Futurama. That day is not today.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
Actually this is a problem with the DMCA qua DMCA. Anyone can *claim* to own a copyright on any crazy thing, and send a DMCA notice, and effectively reverse the burden of proof for the price of 30 seconds typing.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
And there's the problem. Similar situation with tort law; you club someone with a lawsuit and it would cost more for them to comply or settle than fight it, regardless of how frivolous the claim is. Something is broken somewhere.
Oddly enough, this is a problem best solved by another law/tort: frivolous prosecution. You can sue for not only the actual damages (that is, your court costs) but punative damages (money on top to get the other guy to never do it again.)
(Unless, of course, you really MEANT your grammatical mess-up, and intended to say that going along with legal thuggery is less expensive than standing up for your rights -- in which case, WTF?)
"Longchamps, owners of Beefsteak Charlie's, opened a disco called Vamps on Broadway between 70th and 71st in the fall of 1975 and had an advertisement running in "BackStage" for bartenders and waiters. I needed a job at the time and applied for a position. When they say my resume and found that I was a professional dancer they asked me to give the opening night party. They hired a professional party giver, who did Neil Sedaka's Birthday, to give the Saturday Night Party and one of the girls from the Longchamps office gave the Sunday Night 'Black' Party with Leontine Price and Wilt Chamberland. My party was the only party that made money for the staff as well as the restaurant and when the clientel started dropping off a few months later they asked me to give another party only they wanted me to create a new dance and premier the dance at this party. I created "The Electric Slide" as the song had just come out and had a great beat and as I had already created "The Electric Weeble", it seemed the obvious next step. After only a few weeks of teaching the dance, I tore the cartilege in my right knee while demonstrating some of the variations of the dance and was operated on through Workmen's Compensation and was laid up for over a year. It wasn't until 6 or 8 years later that I realized how far the dance had gone and that my worst fears had come true. Every night I would tell the patrons - this dance has 3 threes, 2 twos, a One and a Hop, but I'm sure that someone is going to forget a step and try to square this dance off into 4/4 timing - It is not supposed to start on ONE every time. That is what makes this dance unique - but someone did square it off and want it to start on the downbeat and incorrectly told someone who told someone and all of a sudden - everyone is doing the dance, but they are not doing it correctly. I have spent MANY YEARS trying to correct this and until recently had given up on ever getting it right. - BUT then came the internet and now I am working to correct this wrong."
Ric Silver was injured that night, and was put on NY Workers Comp WC Case 0763-6911 6/17/76, and in the documentation listed on his website it clearly says he was an employee of VAMPS, meaning that he created it because he was asked by his boss. Therefore he doesn't own the dance moves http://ric06379.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/site builderpictures/ll.jpg
Also, his webpage (and personal homepage each play a sound recording of a song I believe is called (warning: iTunes link)"Electric Boogie" by Marcia Griffiths. I can't help but wonder if Mr. Silver has a license from ASCAP, BMI, or whichever entity may be responsible for enforcing the copyright for this sound recording.
As long as I am pointing out these types of things, on Mr. Silver's homepage is a graphical representation of a copyright symbol (the "circle-c" symbol) that looks remarkably similar to the one on the webpage of the U.S. Copyright Office.
In a line in the song "Electric Boogie" the singer says, "Oooooh .. shocking!" Are these facts shocking? Not to me. But very interesting. At least in my humble opinion.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Been there, done that, got the marriage certificate. Whan I got married 17 years ago, the church warned us that videoing the service would be a copyright infringement because some of the hymns used were still in copyright (the organist wasn't fussed about copyright on his performance, because he was a personal friend). We thanked the church for its advice. I couldn't possibly comment in a public forum whether we heeded it.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Aha! You can claim it, under the current Copyright Act. However, this guy claims that he invented the electric slide in 1976. But, the current version of copyright law that we have didn't become effective until 1978. His claim of copyright would have come under the 1909 act, which contains no such reference. There are other problems related to the 1909 act as well. If I recall correctly, publication was necessary for protection.
Even under the 1976 act, it has problems. For example, the fixation requirement at the end of that quote may be at issue here -- if he created the dance AND fixed it sometime before others copied it, then it's probably protected. But, if he created the dance, others copied it and THEN he fixed it, well that's another matter. Fixation of a dance can happen in any of a number of ways, but usually happens either (1) in a notation used by professional choreographers for such things or (2) just by videotaping it.
And, finally, up until the late 1980's, there was a notice requirement of copyright (Remember the Circle-C?). No notice, no copyright (with some limits.)
Notice that I haven't even talked about fair use yet.
(You should not rely on this post as legal advice. Consult your own attorney if you need such advice.)