May I Have This Dance?: Establishing a Liability Standard for Infringement of Choreographic Works
Edwina M. Watkins · Digital Commons (University of Georgia School of Law) · 2003
nation, in an effort to promote the studio and Ms. Elise's expertise.Each year, Arabesque presents a for-profit spring concert where each advanced ensemble performs several of Ms. Elise's choreographicworks for the community.One day, Ms. Elise is flipping through the television stations and catches a glimpse of a Janet Jackson music video.Janet is one of Ms. Elise's favorite performers, and Ms. Elise decides that it would be a good idea to have a Janet Jackson theme for the upcoming spring concert.In order to accomplish this goal, Ms. Elise decides to record an upcoming MTV 6 special that will broadcast the next week.This program includes interviews with Janet's choreographer, Lisa, 7 and shows a chronology of Janet's most popular music videos.Over the following weeks and months, Ms. Elise studies choreographic sequences from the videos.Upon mastering these sequences, she proceeds to incorporate them into her own choreography, which she subsequently teaches to her students at Arabesque.The Arabesque dance ensemble students learn these routines, which include the choreographic sequences that Ms. Elise "borrowed" from theJanetJackson videos, and ultimately perform them at the spring concert, where audience members pay an eight dollar admission price.What type of liability exists for such actions of infringement?How is Lisa, the original choreographer of the pirated sequences, able to protect her creative and artistic efforts?Does Ms. Elise have a defense of "fair use" 9 against the alleged infringement of Lisa's copyright?What are the available remedies?The above hypothetical scenario illustrates many of the concerns of the dance community as well as many of the weaknesses of current statutory protection."The succeeding pages will explore current liability standards in various aspects of copyright law, and attempt to establish a standard of liability for the infringement of choreographic works that will be practically feasible to the dance community while at the same time retaining the fundamental elements that are the essence of copyright law.6 Music Television (MTV), a trademark of MTV Networks, is a cable television station, targeting teenagers and youth in their twenties, that offers viewers music programming and up-tothe-minute news from the music industry.See MTVNetworks, at http://www.mtv.com/sitewide/mtvinfo/faq/onair/onairA6.jhtml#ql (last visited Mar. 12, 2003).For the purposes of the following analysis, it will be assumed that Lisa has satisfied the requirements for registering her choreographic work under the Act.See discussion of requirements, infra pp.439-440.s For the purposes of this analysis, we are assuming that Lisa somehow finds out about the piracy of her choreographic works by Ms. Elise.' The Doctrine of Fair Use is a limitation on the exclusive rights that authors have under the Act.See 17 U.S.C. S 107 (2000).10 The following analysis will not consider the issue of compilations as it relates to this topic.