FIXED IT? THEN IT'S YOURS.
Choreography is protected by copyright only once it is fixed in a tangible form, meaning recorded on video or written down in notation, and an improvised routine that was never recorded generally has no copyright protection at all no matter how original it is. The same sequence of movements is therefore either a fully protectable work or nothing, decided by whether anyone pressed record. Beyond ownership, a choreographer in most European jurisdictions also holds moral rights, the right to be named as author and the right to object to distortion of the work, and those rights survive an assignment of the economic rights in many countries.
Choreographic works recorded, authored and credited before the routine leaves the studio and belongs to whoever filmed it first.
LAST REVIEWED
THE SITUATION
A choreographer builds a piece over weeks in a studio, teaches it to a company, and it is performed. Somebody films it on a phone from the third row. That phone clip is now the only fixation of the work in existence, and it belongs, as a recording, to the person who filmed it, even though the choreography inside it belongs to the choreographer.
Then a commission arrives. The brief is exciting, the fee is real, and buried in the agreement is a work made for hire or full assignment clause covering the choreography, all future adaptations, and the right to alter the piece. The choreographer signs, and later discovers they cannot restage their own work for another company.
WHAT BREAKS.
NEVER FIXED, NEVER PROTECTED
A piece taught live and never recorded or notated, leaving no copyright claim available at all against someone who watched it once and reproduced it.
ASSIGNMENT WITH NO RESTAGING RIGHT
A commission that assigns the choreographic work outright with no licence back, so the choreographer cannot legally restage or teach their own piece elsewhere.
MORAL RIGHTS WAIVED IN A SUBCLAUSE
A single line waiving the right of attribution and the right of integrity, which in many jurisdictions is the only route to object when a work is cut, reordered or set to different music.
THE FIXATION BELONGS TO SOMEONE ELSE
The only recording of a work made by a production, a venue or an audience member, giving the choreographer no control over the artefact that proves their authorship.
VIRAL ROUTINE, NO CREDIT
A short piece filmed and posted, then reperformed and monetised by larger accounts and brands with no credit or licence, despite the fixation requirement being clearly satisfied.
COLLABORATIVE AUTHORSHIP UNRESOLVED
Dancers who contributed material during devising, with no written agreement on whether the result is a single authored work or a joint one, which decides who can license it.
WHAT YOU CAN OWN.
COPYRIGHT
The core right. A choreographic work is protected once fixed in video or notation, and unrecorded movement generally is not protected at all.
TRADEMARK
Rarely relevant, though a company or production name used commercially can be registered separately.
DESIGN RIGHT
Not applicable to choreography, which sits in copyright, though set and costume design belong to their designers.
PATENT
Not applicable.
TRADE SECRET
A work intended for performance cannot practically be held as confidential material.
LIKENESS
Not the choreographer's issue in their authoring capacity, that right belongs to the dancers who appear in the recording.
FOUR STEPS.
DROP
Upload the studio recording or the notation, plus the commission agreement or the company contract.
EXAMINE
Deed confirms whether the work is fixed in a protectable form, then reads the contract for assignment, adaptation and moral rights waiver clauses.
EXECUTE
A dated authorship record for the fixed work, a licence rather than an assignment where possible, and a restaging right written back in.
DEFEND
Monitoring for unlicensed commercial reproduction of the piece, with credit and licensing demands backed by a fixation that predates the copy.
KEY FACTS
- 01Choreography must be fixed in video or notation to attract copyright; live-only performance generally does not qualify.
- 02The copyright in a recording and the copyright in the choreography inside it are two different rights held by two different people.
- 03Moral rights, attribution and integrity, survive assignment of the economic rights in many European jurisdictions unless expressly waived.
- 04A commission structured as work for hire or full assignment can leave a choreographer unable to restage their own piece.
- 05Where dancers contribute devised material, joint authorship can arise, and joint owners generally cannot license unilaterally.
QUESTIONS
+Is my piece protected if it was only ever performed live?
Generally not. Fixation in video or written notation is the threshold. Record the studio run before the premiere, not after.
+Someone filmed my work from the audience. Who owns that clip?
They own the recording as a film. You still own the choreography it captures, so their commercial use of it needs your licence as well as their own.
+Can I restage a piece I made on commission?
Only if the agreement says so. If it assigned the work outright with no licence back, restaging your own choreography elsewhere can be an infringement.
+What are moral rights and do they matter here?
They are the right to be named as author and to object to distortion of the work. For choreography they matter a great deal, because reordering or recutting a piece is a common way it gets altered.
+The dancers helped invent some of it. Do they own part of the work?
Possibly, as joint authors, if their contribution was authorial rather than interpretive. Settle it in writing during devising, because joint ownership complicates every later licence.