If you are a choreographer, you may want to protect your creative work from being copied or used without your permission. While Choreographers Guild is actively working towards collective goals like unionization, we also want to empower individual choreographers with knowledge that can be used today.
What follows applies to copyright law in the United States, where examples of choreography copyrights date to the 1950s, and choreography has been expressly included in federal copyright law since 1976. Choreography is still one of the most underdeveloped areas of copyright law.
What is copyright?
Copyright is a legal right that gives you the exclusive ability to use, copy, distribute, sell, rent, or lend your work. It also allows you to sue anyone who infringes on your rights by copying or using your work without your consent. However, not all works are eligible for copyright protection.
To qualify for protection, your choreography must be original and fixed in a tangible medium. Originality means that your work must show some creativity and not be copied from someone else. Fixation means that your work must be recorded or written down in a way that can be seen or reproduced, such as through video, notation (most commonly Labanotation), or a series of photographs.
The creator of the choreography is the owner of the work, unless the piece was a “work for hire,” which means it was made in the course of your employment (as a W-2 employee) or as a specially ordered or commissioned work. Note however, the ownership of a piece is by default with the creator, unless there is something in writing that says otherwise.
Do I have to register?
Registration is not required for protection, but may be recommended depending on the circumstances. Registration is the process of submitting your work to the Copyright Office along with a form, a fee (currently $45 or higher per work), and some information about your work and yourself. The Copyright Office has more information here. Registration gives you several benefits, such as proving your ownership, obtaining statutory damages, and deterring infringement.
When should I file a registration?
You should register your choreography as soon as possible, preferably before you publish or perform it publicly. If you register within five years of publication, you will have a presumption of validity in court if someone infringes your work. If you register within three months of publication, or before any infringement occurs, you will also be eligible for statutory damages and attorney’s fees, which can save you the hassle and expense of proving your actual damages.
What happens if someone infringes?
If someone infringes your work, and it is registered, you are entitled to seek up $30,000 in statutory damages, or $150,000 in statutory damages if the infringement is willful, plus attorneys fees. Or, you can recover the infringers profits should that amount be greater. Claims can be brought in federal court, or there is a more accessible option called the Copyright Claims Board with monetary damages capped at $30,000.
If your work is not registered, you can still get it taken down from online platforms by using DMCA notices. The Copyright Alliance has more information about using DMCA notices.
Posting your work online
Even if you choose not to register your work, you still have a copyright in your choreography (assuming it is not a work for hire. When posting it, consider adding language such as “© your name 2024” and possibly contact information for licensing your work. If others have your permission to post or repost your materials (such as dance conventions, dance studios for students), you may wish to contractually or otherwise require them to include similar language.
Some tips to consider
Some best practices to consider when registering your choreography include:
- Make sure your work is original and creative enough to qualify for copyright protection. The Copyright Office will not register simple or commonplace movements, social dances, or functional or athletic activities.
- Only works that can be reproduced, or communicated by a device or a person are registerable, meaning you cannot register an improvised or unrepeatable performance that is not memorialized in some way.
- If your work is based on or incorporates a preexisting work, you need to identify the preexisting work and the new material that you added or changed. You also need to obtain permission from the copyright owner of the preexisting work, unless your use falls under fair use or another exception.
- Most choreography is associated with particular music, and you will need to specify whether you are claiming copyright in the music as well, or only in the choreography. When choosing a title for your choreographic work, you may use the title of the song with the addition of the word “Choreography” even if you do not own the recording. You can specify that the “music, lyrics, and musical arrangement” are “pre-existing material.” Also, you do not actually need to include any sound in a video for it to be used to claim a copyright in choreography.
- Be aware of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which affects online content sharing and takedown notices. See more information from the Copyright Alliance website.
- Choreographers Guild invites choreographers to join our collective efforts to improve protections for choreographers. The current legal framework for choreography copyright is underdeveloped, and together we can work on improvements to help our community.