Copyright

What Dance Ministries Should Know About Copyrights
First and foremost, any and every dance ministry needs to contact a
lawyer to get the true and accurate story on copyrights. I can only
talk from experience, but no one should make decisions for your
situation based on our experience. You may also find helpful
information at copyright.gov .

That being said here’s the summary of our understanding: Whenever a
work (dance, song, etc.) is created and recorded it is at that time
copyrighted. For example, a writing is copyrighted when it is written
or typed and a choreography is copyrighted when it is recorded either
by video recording or by written notation. Therefore, anyone who uses
a reproduces a recorded work (be it a song, dance, skit, play,
writing, etc.) without permission from the owner of that work is
infringing copyright laws.

Registering a work with the US Copyright office is a legal formality
that records a public record of the copyright. Although registration
is not needed for copyright protection by law, registration is
required before an infringement suit can be filed.

What many dance ministries don’t realize is that in order to record a
dance to a recorded song (via video, television, youtube, etc.)
copyright licenses must be obtained for use of that song. Yes, there
are many, many, many recorded dances out there for which the dancers
or leaders did not get copyright licenses for the songs used. It is
up to the song company to enforce the copyright law and bring suit
against the infringer. What are the chances that the owner of a song
copyright is going to go through youtube and go after everyone using
his song illegally? Very slim! That’s why so many get away wit it,
but based on my research and experience it is legally wrong
none-the-less.

I hope this helps!

Karmel

karmel@n-him.org