Choreography Copyright: Registering and Protecting Dance in New York

Under 17 U.S.C. 102(a)(4), pantomimes and choreographic works are protected once they are fixed in a tangible medium, which for dance usually means a video recording or written notation. A live performance that no one records is not yet fixed. A clear recording can also serve as the deposit copy you submit when you register.

Copyright reaches the composition and arrangement of movement, not the general idea of a dance or a single athletic feat. Individual steps, poses, and ordinary gestures stay outside protection, while the way you select and sequence them into an expressive whole is what the law guards. Framing a claim around that structure, rather than one striking move, keeps it on firmer ground.

The Copyright Office does not register social dance steps or short, simple routines, such as a basic waltz box or a common line-dance figure. A work qualifies when it reflects original choices in structure, timing, and spatial design rather than familiar building blocks. The originality bar is modest, but a routine that is only a few common moves usually falls short.

You register through the U.S. Copyright Office electronic system, and a complete submission avoids correspondence that can delay your effective date. A choreography application generally follows these core Copyright Office filing steps.

• Open a Standard Application for a work of the performing arts.
• Identify the author and any transfer of rights to a company.
• State whether the work is published, pay the filing fee, and upload your deposit.

The Copyright Office asks for a deposit that lets an examiner perceive the choreographic content of the work. As a practical matter, a recording that shows the full routine clearly, with the dancers in view, communicates the arrangement better than edited clips. This is documentation practice rather than a rigid legal formula, so the goal is clarity.

Timing affects the remedies you can pursue. Under 17 U.S.C. 412, the timing of registration and the commencement of infringement determine eligibility for statutory damages and attorney's fees. For a published work, registration within three months after first publication can preserve those remedies for infringement that begins during that period. Under Fourth Estate v. Wall-Street.com (2019), a copyright owner generally must wait until the Copyright Office acts on the application before filing an infringement suit.

Courts compare the protectable expression in the two works, focusing on the selection and arrangement of movement rather than any single step. In New York, the Second Circuit in Horgan v. Macmillan (1986) held that substantial similarity is the correct standard for choreography and returned the case for analysis under that test, in a dispute over photographs of Balanchine's The Nutcracker. The comparison is fact-intensive, and a developed record may include testimony from choreographers or notators.

Copying is usually shown through a combination of access to your work and similarities that are hard to explain by coincidence. Wide online exposure may support an inference of access depending on the evidence, though it does not prove copying by itself. Because independent creation is a defense, a documented timeline of when you created and shared the work helps.

Serious disputes often involve routines pulled into advertisements, music videos, competition pieces, or monetized social content. Commercial use raises the stakes because the copying earns revenue and reaches large audiences quickly. Commercial copying may support a copyright infringement lawsuit when the evidence establishes actionable copying of protected expression.

You control copying of your fixed choreography and the distribution of those copies, including recorded versions shared online. When a studio sells class videos built on your routine without permission, both rights can come into play. Because these rights attach to the fixed expression, your recording again does double duty.

You hold the exclusive right to perform the work publicly, whether on stage, in a broadcast, or through a stream. An unauthorized public performance of substantially similar choreography may infringe unless a defense such as fair use applies. Still images can implicate these rights depending on how much protectable choreographic expression they capture.

Only you may authorize adaptations, such as a reworked version, a stylized remix, or a new staging based on your sequence. A derivative that borrows your structural expression can still infringe even if the copier swaps the costumes or music. This right lets you license variations on terms you set.

A cease and desist letter is often a practical first step for a dispute you hope to resolve without court. It states your rights, identifies the infringing use, and sets a deadline to stop. It also creates a record that the recipient knew of your claim, which can support a later argument that the infringement was willful.

If the copying continues, federal court can provide an injunction along with monetary recovery, and the available amounts shift with your registration status. The table below outlines the core options under sections 502 and 504.

Licensing offers an alternative to enforcement when the use has value to you. A copyright licensing arrangement authorizes the use in exchange for payment and can set ongoing terms for how the work is performed. It can suit creators who want their choreography used widely under defined conditions.

Teaching, criticism, and commentary can qualify as fair use, though the exception is narrower than many assume. A classroom breakdown of a short excerpt differs from restaging your full routine, and courts analyze that difference through the four statutory factors. Courts weigh all four factors together, and the importance of each depends on the circumstances.

A use is more likely to be fair when it adds new meaning or purpose instead of simply reperforming your choreography. Parody or genuine critical reinterpretation stands on stronger ground than a copy adjusted with minor changes. Because the analysis is fact-specific, close calls turn on how far the new work reshapes the original.