16 Sep
2013
16 Sep
'13
9:26 a.m.
Fair use does not cover public performance at a contra dance. Of course
I'm not giving legal advice about any particular instance of breach of
copyright. But, as I phrased it in general terms, I believe that if a
caller wanted to go after people who called that person's dances, I think
that caller could do so. Yes, the caller trying to enforce the copyright
would have to register beforehand to do so, but I would guess that if a
caller came around who really wanted to sue people for copyright
infringement, that caller would have registered their dances close to
publication. Is this extremely unlikely? Yes. Does that mean it's not
legal or would not work? No.
I also agree that it appears to common sense that callers who publish their
dances in books intend for other people to call those dances. Why else
would they publish them? But, that reasoning doesn't extend to public
performances of plays, for instance, so I'm not convinced a judge would
look at it the way you do.
As far as "performing rights" go, any caller could license anybody to call
their dances the same way music copyright holders allow ASCAP and BMI to
license their dances. And indeed, some apparently do, through "copyleft"
notices, which are essentially open licenses for anybody to have performing
rights to it. But most callers do not do this in any kind of clear way.
On Mon, Sep 16, 2013 at 3:08 AM, Yoyo Zhou <yozhov(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Dave Casserly
<david.j.casserly(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
--
David Casserly
(cell) 781 258-2761
As far as I can tell, the way most callers call
most dances is a breach
of
copyright, and they could potentially be sued for
a lot of money for it
(there's a statutory minimum of $750 per breach, which really adds up).
This is a really overreaching statement to make. I am not a lawyer.
However, there are many other parts of the law that come into play:
performing rights and fair use, for example. (Also, statutory damages are
only possible if the work is registered with the Copyright Office within 3
months of publication.) In my opinion, asserting that something "is a
breach of copyright" should be left to the courts.
For instance, I believe it's reasonable under fair use to copy this apropos
excerpt from Give-and-Take here, even though it's probably not reasonable
to copy the whole book:
"Text is copyright Larry Jennings, 2002. Copyright for each dance is
retained by the listed composer. Permission to
include each dance has been granted by the composer or his representative."
Now, Give-and-Take doesn't say that the composers also gave permission to
call their dances in public, but it would be most surprising (even for a
non-contradancing judge, I would think) to believe they intended otherwise.
Yoyo Zhou
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