Unorthodox Art.

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What a magnificent showing at the playhouse last night.  Im amazed at the unique events that are sometimes shown at our theater.  I haven’t seen such an unorthodox event at the Williams Arts Center since William Pope.L’s statue of a pirate with MLK’s head and chocolate sauce dripping from his head.  The distinctive characteristics of these works made me think about how copyright has promoted individualism and creativity.  Artists may feel more inclined to add more personality and unusual features to their works not simply for the sake of art, but for protection against copyright.

Rite of Spring

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Tonight’s performance at the Williams Center was an amazing experience.  The style of dance was very different than what I am used to (I was a ballet dancers for years).  Marie Chouinard’s choreography combined modern dance with ballet to evoke a wide variety of feelings in the audience.  The first act, 24 Preludes by Chopin, channelled every possible emotion.  The main feature of the night, though, was Chouinard’s version of The Rite of Spring.  Originally composed by Igor Stravinsky and choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky in 1913, the 100 year anniversary of this historically famous piece gives us much to think about.  The score is in the public domain only in the United States.  The original choreography has no copyright, although extensive research led one company, the Joffrey Ballet, to re-stage the piece according to Nijinsky’s original choreography in 1988.

Because the original choreography is not protected by copyright, many choreographers throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have created their own choreography to accompany the musical piece.  (A list of some of the most famous adaptations of the work can be seen here.)

What do you guys think of this?  Is it fair that other choreographers can re-do what has already been done?  Or should we encourage this creativity?

A Thought on Theater

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From I could tell during the brownbag with Mary Jo Lodge, the general attitudes toward copyright in theater are tight. Arabian Nights was an exceptional exception which allowed incredible freedom on the part of the director and cast. However, most plays come with strict contracts which state that nothing is to be changed in the script. This seems to come from a branding mentality. When a show called Book of Mormon is performed, it better be the same show that appeared two months ago in two cities over, or it won’t be Book of Mormon. From the perspective of the creators or copyright holders, a show which deviates from the original would give the original a bad reputation. However, the smart play-goer would understand the show as not being performed by the original cast nor director, thus of course it would be different from the real thing. Regardless of our perceptions, it seems that copyright holders in theater want to do the easiest thing possible to protect their play’s integrity.

Grease and Desist

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After Professor Lodge’s brownbag this afternoon, I decided to research a bit further into the play she mentioned, Grease and Desist.  As Professor Lodge mentioned, Grease and Desist came out of a cease and desist letter that was sent to a theater company in Philadelphia, from the publishing company Samuel French, who own the rights to the original production.  The Philadelphia company received this letter as a result of their decision to perform Grease with an all-female cast.  According to Samuel French, “changing the gender of the actors was the same as changing the script.”  Madi Destefano, the artistic director, reacted, saying that she and her coworkers “did not seek permission to change the gender of the cast because they didn’t know they should.”

 

I found this example of copyright and licensing exceptionally interesting and a good example of the intricacies of copyright law in theater.  I’m sure there are many others like it, that run despite their contracts, that are shut down because of copyright infringement, as so on.

Arabian Nights

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There were many factors to Arabian Nights that I thought were good. First off, the theater was small and intimate, which I thought was a nice touch. The set was very well designed; a lot better than I thought it was going to be.  It allowed for a lot of variations in acting by the participants to make the play their own. I think its cool that no two plays will be the same.

The Legacy of SOPA

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Though it may be an old issue, I think the would-be Congressional laws SOPA and PIPA have raised questions about how best to protect copyright. Surely these acts are dead, but corporations like the Motion Picture Association of America still need to find new ways to protect their economic interests in copyrights. Since most piracy online comes from independent users, a direct approach to monitoring and punishing offenders would be impossible. Instead, copyright laws attack the bigger, more visible targets. For example, SOPA would have shut down an entire site if it had been found to possess copyrighted material illegally (even though the users were responsible for putting that content on the site). With this maneuver out of the picture, it looks like copyright owners are going after internet service providers. One plan calls for providers to slow down internet speed or even cut service entirely from repeat offenders.

Another interesting part of this article: It looks like Google has changed its algorithm to force copyrighted material into low priority on searches. If I can’t find copyrighted material, I guess I won’t be able to infringe it. This caught my attention because Google was one of many sites to black out for a day in protest of SOPA. To see them now compromising with those who would have loved to see the act pass seems hypocritical.

The New Business Model

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To combat music piracy some bands have begun trying a radically new business model for selling their music. They are giving it away. By making some of their music available online for free, these bands are managing to make just as much money as they did the conventional way. They have completely gotten rid of the need for record companies as they are able to interact directly with fans. This enables the bands to also sell their music extremely cheaply because every single dollar of the profit goes directly to them, instead of the record company taking its cut. Here we can see that piracy can be combated without the use of lawmaking.

University of Phoenix Suing Chegg

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The University of Phoenix is suing Chegg for selling answers to their homework and offering some of their entire course syllabii online. I thought this was an interesting case because if Chegg is putting together a curriculum for, for example, differential equations, then there is only a limited amount of material that the class covers. So, is information copyrighted as well? Does the University of Phoenix have the right to restrict Chegg from posting their curriculum because the two are similar?

 

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130304/03161322186/magician-sued-teller-copyright-infringement-has-tried-disappearing-act-response.shtml

Arabian Nights

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I enjoyed the play much more than I thought I would, especially considering I thought it would be like the typical Arabian Nights telling. I liked how it was set in the present, and that despite the time difference between the stories, the moral was applicable in our lives. However, that does bring up an interesting question in copyright – did Mary Zimmerman have to request the rights for each of those individual stories? Or did she simply use the public domain for those? How do anonymously told legends and stories become copyrighted, or is anyone allowed to use them?