Dancing and Copyright - Scary Combo!
February 6th, 2007 by Rob
Back in the 1930’s and ’40’s, in many areas, it was quite taboo to steal someone else’s killer dance move(s). Usually these matters were resolved with a step outside or a walk back behind the building. As the fierce local competition to be the best dancer faded away, so did the taboo of picking up other people’s moves. Over time, sharing moves and steps has been generally accepted to be good for dancing and the dance. In computer terms, think of it as Open Source for dancing. It spreads the dance and helps it grow. The advent of video, has triggered an explosion of sharing in the dance community. Its all been viewed as good, until now…
The inventor of the Electric Slide has copyrighted the dance and is flexing his legal strong-arm against what he views as copyright violations and examples of “bad dancing” (read more). Could this be the start of a trend? A modern day equivalent of “stepping outside” for a sue happy society? The sad thing about all this is that there is very little to gain from it, but the already fragile dance community has a lot to loose.
Well, I guess it could be worse.
