16 Sep
2013
16 Sep
'13
3:08 a.m.
On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Dave Casserly
<david.j.casserly(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
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