Neal, I disagree with what you've said.  As Read's reply and Jeff's post point out, actually, contra dances might not be considered dance choreography under the statute.  And, if I were a judge looking at it, I'd say it isn't.  Contra dances might have one or two unique moves, but that is much, much less original than choreography of a ballet, etc.  My reading of the statute is that Congress meant the latter, not the former, particularly given the exclusion of social dance steps.

But, I'm not sure about that reading, and my point in emailing is to say that you shouldn't be sure either.  As Read mentioned, this is the kind of thing we don't know for sure until somebody decides a case (it would be a judge, not a jury, but that's beside the point).  I'd caution everybody on the list, particularly non-lawyers, from giving legal conclusions and saying things like "it is correct based on the law."  Neal, your conclusions probably aren't correct, but maybe they are.  I don't practice copyright law, but even if I did, I highly doubt I'd know a sure answer.

But one thing your post points out is important to keep in mind.  You can only sue for actual damages if the copyright's unregistered.  From this, I take two points.  One, since I'm not aware of anybody ever registering a contra dance, it's very unlikely that anybody would be able to show sufficient harm from somebody else's use of that dance to actually win a case.  So, it's totally not worth suing over.  Two, sometimes people sue over things that are not worth suing over, so it's probably also worth it to make a minimum effort to contact dance authors.  It doesn't hurt anything to do so and only takes a few seconds.  I'm not aware of any dance caller who has asked somebody not to call their dance.  Publish, sure, people might not want you to, but call it?  That's why people write dances.

On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 4:11 AM, Neal Schlein via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Since the original question had two points, about legal and moral standing,  I'll answer the legal part:

The short answer is NO YOU MAY NOT WITHOUT PERMISSION.

US law is both extremely clear and exceptionally vague.  The clear parts:
1.  Any new creative work that is set down in a fixed form is instantly copyrighted.  There is a bare minimum of creativity needed to generate copyrightable material.
2.  Dance choreography is a copyrightable form.
3. The following acts are SOLELY allowed to the copyright holder or specifically licensed user:  performance, reproduction, reprinting, publishing,  public display, broadcast, recording, creation of a derivative work.  I may have forgotten a few. 
4. US copyright law has no moral requirements; it is purely financial and transactional in nature.  You have no legal moral requirement (whatever that means...) to acknowledge the author's wishes or even identify them as the author.  In Europe this is different.
5. There is no mechanism established in US copyright law for a person to place an item into the public domain, nor for unclaimed and otherwise orphan works except if they clearly fall into the public domain due to age.  See Creative Commons for an attempted fix.
6.  If an item is not registered with the Copyright Office, you can only sue for actual damages and demand cessation.  (Usually neither worth it nor desired in our world.)  If an item has been registered with the Copyright Office, you can sue for many thousands of dollars, plus court costs and actual damages.
7.  There are no provisions for traditional or folk material or forms, and very little case law.

So, all modern contra dances are copyrighted works, and under the main part of the law it is clear that you may not legally publish, reprint, call (perform), or video tape them without permission from the copyright holder (this is not necessarily the author).

The unclear part:
The Fair Use provision allows for anyone to use copyrighted material without permission in any of the otherwise prohibited ways...under unspecified circumstances, according to at least four criteria that must be applied to each individual situation and weighted uniquely by a judge, and which can only be determined with certainty for a given case by the Supreme Court.  So, basically useless as a planning guide.


Whether you think the above should be true or not, it is correct based on the law

Feel free to ask questions.  I actually enjoy this stuff.
Neal

Neal Schlein
Youth Services Librarian, Mahomet Public Library


Currently reading: The Different Girl by Gordon Dahlquist
Currently learning: How to set up an automated email system.

On Sat, Jan 23, 2016 at 2:54 PM, Colin Hume via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 10:47:04 -0500, Tom Hinds via Callers wrote:
> My understanding is that here in the US choreography can't be
> protected by law but the written word or the description of it can
> be legally copyrighted.
>
> It would be interesting to know what the law is in the UK.

My understanding is that it's the same here.  But when we've discussed
copyright on lists the usual conclusion is that there just isn't
enough money in it for anyone to make a fuss no matter what happens!

Colin Hume


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