Wedding Attendees Worldwide Rejoice: Electric Slide Legal To Use Again

from the DMCA-abuse dept

Tue, May 22nd 2007 7:43pm — Mike Masnick

Remember how the (disputed) creator of the annoying "Electric Slide" dance had been issuing DMCA takedown notices to anyone who put up videos of people doing a version of the dance? The EFF stepped in and sued the guy for abusing the DMCA. It appears that someone finally sat down the guy and explained to him how the law works and he's now agreed to not just back away from his DMCA threats, but also to "license" the dance for non-commercial use via a Creative Commons license. Of course, this is still somewhat problematic. Why should anyone need to license the dance from him? While it sounds nice that he's offering a CC license, doesn't that just reinforce the idea that he can actually tell people how they can dance?

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16 Comments

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Anonymous Poster (profile), 22 May 2007 @ 8:00pm

This is why any sort of movement of the human body should not be allowed to be patented.

And that includes the movements that result in idiotic BS like this.
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dorpus, 22 May 2007 @ 8:26pm

Theory and Reality
There is a difference between what legal theory says and how it is practiced. In theory, doctors have the right to take anyone who signs the driver's license for organ donation and do as they please with the body. In practice, hospitals seek family permission (even though it is not required).

A propagandist blog like this will quote legal theory out of context and confuse it with reality, arguing that doctors are abducting babies or whatever.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2007 @ 9:02pm

Re: Theory and Reality
Um, what does that have to do with this? Last time I checked taking organs and dancing were different things...
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Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2007 @ 9:09pm

Dorpus, please go away ! ! !
"arguing that doctors are abducting babies or whatever"... now THAT would be a "propagandist blog". I searched all over TechDirt for a reference to what you are speaking of, and haven't found anything even closely related to it. But in the replies, I see plenty of times where a user named "Dorpus" mentions several random "propagandist" (thpugh, I think the correct term you mean is "conspiracy") ideas such as the ones you just mentioned.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 May 2007 @ 9:59pm

Dorpus is the resident troll - ignore him.
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Charles Griswold, 22 May 2007 @ 10:35pm

Re:
Dorpus is the resident troll - ignore him.
Heres's a poster I made in his honor.
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ReallyEvilCanine, 22 May 2007 @ 11:40pm

License
Why should anyone need to license the dance from him?

Because the entire dance -- these particular moves in this particular order -- was a creative work, like a ballet only shorter. His copyright doesn't prevent people dancing any of the component steps, not even if they do it in the order he copyrighted. His copyright is for works featuring that set of moves termed "Electric Slide", a misnomer of the original dance, The Electric, ©1976.

Choreography can be copyrighted. Paid performances must be licensed, subject to (the precious few) copyright limitations. As I understand it, he has no claim against any person or group spontaneously dancing the Electric, only against the commercial use of this dance. He might have something to say if one of Clear Channel's CW radio stations held an Electric Slide contest, but there's not much he can do when a bunch of good ol' boys and gals decide to start Sliding on a Friday night after a few rounds.
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ButnSkala, 23 May 2007 @ 1:34am

Goal Celebration Patented
I don't know wheter this is urban legend or not. It was much publicized in the Europe that Alan Shearer patented his goal celebration so no footballer could celebrate goals like he did. So I guess it is possible. It's not something I like that's certain.
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ReallyEvilCanine, 23 May 2007 @ 2:23am

I don't know wheter this is urban legend or not... So I guess it is possible.
Umm... no. Unless you can find some citation, that's bollox. I live in Yerp, I can't find a thing about this, and no one I know who follows footie has heard of anything so preposterous, and they're pretty rabid fans.
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Cixelsid, 23 May 2007 @ 5:34am

Just to let everybody know
I'm patenting the "Electric Slide2: Eclectic Boogaloo"[1]. Its a magical fusion of soul, hip-hop and Morris Dancing.

[1] That is the full trademarked name and not to be used by: (a) Haters.
(b) Richard Silver.
(c) Anyone who has some self respect.
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ehrichweiss, 23 May 2007 @ 6:14am

Re: Theory and Reality
"In practice, hospitals seek family permission (even though it is not required)."

No, it IS required unless they would like to face a multi-million dollar malpractice suit. It only takes a family that is deeply religious and doesn't believe in organ donation, even if the victim did, to make it a reality. I know of many similar cases thanks to my wife having worked for a settlement group.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2007 @ 6:21pm

Re: License
there's not much he can do when a bunch of good ol' boys and gals decide to start Sliding on a Friday night after a few rounds.
Hmmm, didn't you just get through saying "Choreography can be copyrighted"? So are you also saying then that copyrights don't apply on Friday nights or what? I call BS.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2007 @ 6:29pm

Is a CC License a Cover?
I wonder if I could claim copyright on the King James Bible but then just put a liberal license on it to avoid any legal challenges. It seems that the EFF would be fine with that approach.
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Charles Griswold, 23 May 2007 @ 8:31pm

Re: Is a CC License a Cover?
I wonder if I could claim copyright on the King James Bible but then just put a liberal license on it to avoid any legal challenges. It seems that the EFF would be fine with that approach.
No, you can't claim copyright on the King James Bible. Not unless you wrote it, anyway.

But, since it's in the Public Domain, you could take the text, add stuff (study notes or whatever) and copyright the result. That would protect your (presumably) enhanced version, but not (of course) the original version.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 May 2007 @ 9:04pm

Re: Re: Is a CC License a Cover?
No, you can't claim copyright on the King James Bible. Not unless you wrote it, anyway.
Why not? It worked for the electric slide guy. And who's gonna sue me, the EFF? All they want is to see a CC license on it, or so it seems from this case.
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Charles Griswold, 24 May 2007 @ 7:43pm

Re: Re: Re: Is a CC License a Cover?
Why not? It worked for the electric slide guy. And who's gonna sue me, the EFF? All they want is to see a CC license on it, or so it seems from this case.
You can't copyright the King James Bible 1) because it's very much in the public domain and 2) because it was published in 1611, which means that unless you were born sometime in the sixteenth century, you didn't write it.
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