The Protection of Choreographies Under Copyright Law: A Comparative Analysis

The legal literature on intellectual property has rarely focused on choreographies. Choreographic works are different from other works protected under copyright law, because they consist in a limited number of standardised building blocks (musical notes, dance steps and movements) which are then each time arranged in an original, creative, and reproducible combination. The questions for lawyers are whether the combination of these elements is deemed worthy of protection by the legal domain in its entirety, or whether the musical part and the movement sequence can only find protection as separate components of the choreographic work; in either case, the question arises as to what are the thresholds for protection, and what remedies are available. In this paper, the author examines the legal issues related to choreographies through a comparative approach, considering concrete cases related to this matter as well as national legislation and international IP treaties.