The Freedom Bit

Copyright law in the US is a circus. And like any circus, there are some great sideshows.

Take, for example, one man’s crusade to re-assert his ownership of the Electric Slide.

Is this a joke?

Yes, in that it’s funny. But the story is for real. Richard Silver, who claims to have invented the dance in the late 70s, has been actively pursuing copyright claims against people who publish videos of the dance.

Things got pretty ugly, with Silver using the DMCA to demand/force YouTube to take down videos of people performing the dance. (He claimed that part of the reason for the demands was that people were doing the dance wrong.)

The EFF has been working on behalf of Kyle Machulis, a videographer who posted a video that included a 10-second clip of people trying to do the Electric Slide. Because of the EFF’s effort, Silver has agreed to license his copyright under a Creative Commons license that allows anyone to use the dance for noncommercial purposes.

I hate line dances. That being said, simply shooting a video of me stumbling through the Boot Scootin’ Boogie should not require permission from anyone.
What public interest is there in assigning this kind of broad protection to dance? Does it encourage innovation in dance to allow someone to restrict the rest of the country from moving their body in a certain way? If the dancer is a good dancer, it won’t be possible to truly copy them. And a dancer’s own video is already protected by copyright law.

For almost all of human history, dance has been an unregulated, unrestricted activity. While I’m glad that Silver is allowing noncommercial use of his dance, the victory is bittersweet at best. It shouldn’t even be a question. As artists, videographers, photographers, painters and DJs should not be penalized for including references to the culture we all live in.