Take ownership of your intellectual property rights by protecting your original choreography.

Follow Own Your Dance on Eventbrite to stay up to date on upcoming virtual workshops on the copyright registration process

Workshops will include information about:

  1. what is a copyright registration

  2. a step-by-step guide on how to register

  3. necessary criteria for choreographic registrability

  4. resources on past copyright infringement cases in the dance industry

Our workshops are ENTIRELY free - made by artists for artists - to give more budding artists the resources to develop their careers and works.

To stay updated:

Why should you care about protecting your IP?

Historically, the dance community has relied on an unspoken code of respect to recognize and protect choreographers’ original work.

However, in the digital age, dance content rapidly proliferates, scales, and can be attributed to the wrong people.

Copyright registration allows choreographers to enforce the exclusive rights of copyright in the legal system and to file a copyright infringement suit.

We seek to educate choreographers about the process to empower the entire dance industry as a whole.

Recent Dance Intellectual Property Infringement Cases

  • 2 Milly Sued Epic Games

    Epic Games reused his “Milly Rock” dance for an emote, an in game purchase, for the game Fortnite. 2 Milly claims that Epic Games profitted off of his move’s popularity and constantly misappropriates African American culture.

    Read more here

  • "Renegade Dance" by Jalaiah Harmon

    The viral “renegade” dance was appropriated by many white mainstream creators, including Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae, without giving credit to the choreographer Jalaiah Harmon, a black woman. Her dance made them immensely famous and they received financial successes, essentially taking credit for Jalaiah’s work.

    Read more here

  • Martha Graham's School of Dance Choreography Ownership Case

    Ronald Protas, the heir of Martha Graham, challenged her dance school in court by claiming to own its dances. The school proved that Graham assigned the rights to the school and choreographed the dances as “works made for hire”. Judge Cedarbaum ruled in the center’s favor and against Mr. Protas.

    Read more here

Who Are We?

My name is Lauren LaPorta and I am a competitive dancer and choreographer in Los Angeles, California. I am building a team of artists passionate about protecting the intellectual property rights of choreographers, especially on social media platforms that do not grant creators proper legal protection. Feel free to send me an email with any questions: ownyourdanceworkshops@gmail.com

Note: These workshops are not led by lawyers, and therefore do not provide legal advice, only process information.

Reach out via email to get involved.