As an aerialist, I’ve heard the term “Intellectual Property” being thrown around a lot. But do you really have an intellectual property right in relation to your act? How do you protect yourself from someone replicating choreography that you’ve spent weeks, months, or years perfecting, and claiming it as their own? The short answer is YES, you can copyright choreography, but only under very specific conditions… What is Intellectual Property? Intellectual property is a broad term covering patents, trademarks, trade secrets, and copyrights. What we’re concerned about is copyright protection. According to the US Copyright Office, copyright “is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to the authors of ‘original works of authorship,’ including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works.” What does it cover? As it relates to performance art, Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to, and to authorize others to “To perform the work publicly, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.” So we know that the Copyright Act anticipated choreographic works as an “original work of authorship,” but we still have to define a choreographic work. To further confuse the matter, explanatory material provided by the US Copyright Office refers specifically to dance choreography and “other forms of movement” which we will just have to assume includes choreography in the air as well as on the ground. The Copyright Office considers the following factors when determining whether a work is “choreography”: 1. The presence of rhythmic movements from a dancer’s body in a defined space; 2. Compositional arrangement into a coherent, integrated whole; 3. Musical or textual accompaniment; 4. Dramatic content such as a story or theme. 5. Whether the work is designed to be performed by skilled individuals for an audience. Additionally, works MUST be independently created and contain a sufficient amount of creativity. It’s clear from these considerations that the Copyright Office will not consider a simple sequence of moves to be copyrightable choreography, but the act as a whole. Your work should tell a story, be set to music, and all come together into an integrated whole. And that means that, in order to violate your copyright, someone has to replicate your entire act, not just a sequence of movements. How do I protect myself from theft? Now that we know what Intellectual Property is and what qualifies for copyright protection, we need to figure out how to protect ourselves from theft by registering the copyright. Step One: Transfer Your Choreo to a Tangible Medium Under U.S. copyright law, copyright protection exists as soon as an original work of authorship has been created in fixed form. If you’re like most aerialists, you’re probably recording it anyway. Be sure to back up your videos and record the entire act. Step Two: Register with the U.S. Copyright Office There’s a small fee associated with registering your copyright, but it puts everyone on notice that they cannot sell or claim your act as their own. You can even do it online! Step Three: Add the Copyright Notice to Published Versions of Your Act If you’re uploading the video online or sending it out as a demo, be sure to include a copyright notice containing your name and year copyrighted. This will prevent infringement.