January 8, 2007

Building an Online Marketplace for the Licensing of Dance Choreography

Update: A few minutes after publishing the below post I came across Wall Street Journal article, "Fine Art of Distinctions: The line between creative performance and actual authorship blurs," by Terry Teachout. This articles deals with the confusing world of copyright laws as they apply to the arts - a topic I touch upon toward end of post. [via ArtsJournal]

In a number of spheres of the art and entertainment world - music, video/film/TV and theater, for example - there have been initiatives to create online marketplaces to facilitate the licensing and use of artistic creations. Yet within the dance community, there has been no such activity. The lack of such an online exchange is unfortunate because it could serve as an important new revenue stream for choreographers.

A Possible Model for the Dance Community

Last September I was listening to an interview on the radio program Studio 360. (Click on this link and then select "Playscrips" to listen to the program). The guests were Douglas and Jonathan Rand, brothers who started a new business in 2001 called Playscripts, Inc. The brothers realized that the process of marketing unpublished plays was very difficult and there were only two main companies through which playwrights had to work in order to get exposure for their scripts.

So the Playscript founders created an online marketplace where quality scripts could be licensed. Now the service has over 550 plays from more than 350 playwrights. Most of these plays are licensed to high schools and community theater groups. In the interview the Rand brothers pointed out that most agents are always in search of the big gigs for their playwright clients. The big challenge, however, is that there are only a few hundred professional theaters but there are tens of thousands of high schools that produce plays.

The end result is that everybody benefits from the Playscript concept. Amateur and professional groups in need of plays can now search for, review, license and pay for scripts. And the playwrights now have a new revenue stream through this innovative distribution platform.

An Online Licensing Platform for Dance Choreography

Is it possible to create a similar online marketplace for the licensing of dance choreography?

I think that this idea is worth exploring although there are some potential hurdles that may be difficult to overcome.

Among the key challenges:

First, is there a market today for licensing dance choreography? In most cases when choreography is licensed it is done to re-stage well-known works or for Broadway-style productions. But as the Rand brothers identified a huge untapped marketplace for plays in high schools, is there a similar unrecognized market for dance choreography?

Second, choreographers and dancers often do not get copyrights for their dance works. Without a standardized approach to protecting intellectual property - in this case dance choreography - it's not really possible to set-up a marketplace (online or off) where large numbers of dance works can be licensed. Take a look at "When Choreographer is Out of the Picture" by Diane Solway in yesterday's New York Times. The article points out that even the great choreographers of the 20th Century have paid little attention to ensuring that they secured a legal interest in their works and could control their own legacy:

“I don’t care frankly,” said the boyish Mr. Taylor with a sly laugh, fishing another cigarette from the pack. “I won’t be here to see the dances which I enjoy, so what does it matter to me?

Third, if large numbers of choreographers did seek copyright protection, a train wreck might ensue. Would there all of a sudden be hundreds of court cases with choreographers and dancers battling it out to determine who exactly owned what moves, steps and combinations? Dance may be better off the way it is now - a fluid process of creation, sharing and re-mixing where choreographers are inspired by many sources and incorporate many ideas into their dances.

Let's say that the above challenges can be addressed, how would an online marketplace look for the licensing of dance choreography?

I think it would be similar to Playscripts. Buyers could search for dance works by style, choreographer, audience-type, price and other criteria. Then users could read descriptions and watch video excerpts.

The pricing options would be listed for each piece of choreography. For example, there might be different prices for amateur and professional groups and different combinations of a flat licensing fee with or without a percentage of box office receipts.

In addition, the choreographer could choose to allow the creation of derivative works so that the licensed choreography could be used as the basis for a new work built upon this original piece.

So my hunch is that it would be very challenging to create a marketplace for the licensing of dance choreography - although if it were possible, it would create a new revenue stream for the creators of these works.

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