Copyright of Choreography, was: Re: Rights to music at sports events

Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 29 Apr 1997, Bill Thayer <petworth[_at_]suba.com> wrote:
> >
> > Interestingly, the skating "program" is
> . . .
> > (b) definitely a derivative work.
>
> I had always assumed that a skating program (assuming fixation) would
> qualify as a 102(4) choreographic work (not that that's mutually
> exclusive with a derivative work).

Do people who register choreographic works normally consider them as derivative works. (Specifically, do they list the music in part 6a of Form PA?) Also, has there been any litigation on this issue? A few years back Eliot Feld prepared a ballet and only a few weeks before the scheduled premier he finally learned that he could _not_ get the performance rights to the music. What he did was to deliver a very funny monologue on the failed negotiations and then his company performed the piece without music. Obviously he thought that he was not breaking any laws thereby and the owner of the music copyright, as near as I know, did not sue on a "derivative work" theory.

Finally, except for the case involving photographs of a Balanchine ballet (Horgan vs. Some Publisher), I don't know of any litigation involving choreographic copyrights. Can anyone give me any pointers? (Please excuse the question, I don't have really easy access to Lexis or the USCA right now.)

/John Kasdan
<kasdan[_at_]columbia.edu> Received on Fri May 02 1997 - 16:25:04 GMT