{"id":18416,"date":"2016-09-25T21:15:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T21:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.academieduello.com\/?p=18416"},"modified":"2016-10-09T20:30:07","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T20:30:07","slug":"copyright-and-choreography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/playfighting.ca\/combat\/stage-combat-2\/copyright-and-choreography\/","title":{"rendered":"Copyright and Choreography"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m rewatching a fun horror\/comedy called John Dies At the End.<\/em> It opens with a zombie variant on Theseus\u2019 Paradox. The question posed in this paradox first posed by Plutarch is: If a ship gets damaged a little bit voyage by voyage and is gradually repaired so that every plank of wood is different from the original, is it the same ship?
\nLater in the movie, John casually asks, \u201cWhen you hear a song playing on the radio, where\u2019s the song?\u201d
\nThis article is going to be on the lengthy side, and it would only be longer if I connected all the dots. Instead, I\u2019d like to give you some questions to think about and discuss with other performers and choreographers on the topic of copyright and fight choreography.<\/p>\n

Dry Legal Stuff<\/h2>\n

The law is our attempt to encode ethics into rules that we actually enforce in society. I\u2019ll talk below about our community\u2019s customs and norms and different ideals about working as a creative artist in practical terms. But I\u2019m going to start with the strict interpretation of the law.<\/p>\n

Bob Tarantino wrote an article called \u201cCopyright in Choreography in Canada\u201d<\/a> in which he succinctly describes how the Copyright Act<\/em> works with regard to dance choreography. He wrote it in October 2011 when Beyonc\u00e9 was accused of copying dance moves for a music video.<\/p>\n

First off, it is important to note that choreography is clearly eligible for copyright protection. It is one of the listed types of \u201cdramatic work\u201d that qualifies\u00a0and is not limited to dance or theatre.<\/p>\n

Tarantino points out that there are two requirements for a determination that any work is copyrightable: originality and fixation. We\u2019ll return to the originality requirement. With regard to the fixation requirement, there must be some way that the choreography was recorded, but that can be written, pictorial or filmed or otherwise.<\/p>\n

He notes that there are very few cases that have ever been heard by Canadian courts. The case most often cited is Pastor v. Chen<\/a>, in which a dance instructor sued a former student of his who was teaching the instructor\u2019s dance sequences to other customers. However, a close reading shows that it was actually on the basis of the breach of a confidentiality agreement that the instructor won his argument, not copyright.<\/p>\n

Tarantino points to an excellent 44-page report called \u201cChoreography and Copyright\u201d<\/a> by Laurent Carri\u00e8re for more information.<\/p>\n

Carri\u00e8re\u2019s analysis clarifies the following points:<\/p>\n