{"id":96805,"date":"2022-04-28T20:15:01","date_gmt":"2022-04-28T14:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/black-creators-still-looking-for-credit-compensation-from-viral-dance\/"},"modified":"2022-04-28T20:15:01","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T14:45:01","slug":"black-creators-still-looking-for-credit-compensation-from-viral-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/black-creators-still-looking-for-credit-compensation-from-viral-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Creators Still Looking for Credit, Compensation From Viral Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By June 2021, Erick Louis was tired of seeing fellow Black creators on TikTok getting ripped off. Viral dance videos helped songs like Doja Cat\u2019s \u201cSay So\u201d and Lil Nas X\u2019s \u201cOld Town Road\u201d shoot up the pop charts, but the more those dances were copied, the less the people behind them were credited. Black creatives would share a dance, but it wouldn\u2019t become a trend until a white creator \u2014 Addison Rae and Charli D\u2019Amelio being two big examples \u2014 with a bigger platform performed it.<\/p>\n

Things came to a head when Megan Thee Stallion announced she was releasing a new song, \u201cThot Shit.\u201d Her songs \u201cSavage\u201d and \u201cCaptain Hook\u201d had spawned viral dance crazes that were copied and mimicked thousands of times over \u2014 and Black creators were worried it would happen again.<\/p>\n

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So Louis made a video encapsulating what they were feeling: In the clip, he gets ready to dance, then abruptly sticks up two middle fingers as text pops up: \u201cSike! This app would be nothing without Black people.\u201d \u201cMy video just ended up being the one that somehow became the face of this \u2018dance strike,\u2019\u201d Louis says of that initial TikTok, which quickly amassed more than 500,000 views. \u201cThose feelings \u2014 that tension, that anger, that frustration \u2014 already existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly a year after the dance strike \u2014 in which a group of creators very openly refused to participate in viral dances \u2014 Black creators on TikTok still face challenges when it comes to getting their due. In response to the complaints, TikTok took a series of steps to show support for Black creators. This included a page titled \u201cCrediting Creators,\u201d which outlined how to properly acknowledge originators of a trend, a TikTok for Black creators incubator program, an initiative to #SupportBlackBusinesses, and a partnership with MACRO to award $50,000 grants to 10 creators.<\/p>\n

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@theericklouis<\/a> <\/p>\n

If y\u2019all do the dance pls tag me \ud83d\ude44 it\u2019s my first dance on Tik tok and I don\u2019t need nobody stealing\/not crediting<\/p>\n

\u266c Thot Shit \u2013 Megan Thee Stallion<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Vigilant TikTok users, meanwhile, have focused on adding \u201cDance Credit (DC)\u201d or \u201cInspired By (IB)\u201d in their video captions. But as Sydnee McRae, a content creator on TikTok, puts it, \u201cIt\u2019s never been a level playing field for Black and white creators. I don\u2019t really think [those changes are] gonna make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is there is no real recourse for those who want credit for their dances. Laws defining copyrighted material are complicated for Black creators: For starters, the law is broad when it comes to choreography. It\u2019s defined as a sequence of dance moves that are \u201can original work of authorship that\u2019s fixed in a tangible medium of expression,\u201d explains Jeanne Fromer, a law professor at New York University. A dancer can\u2019t copyright just one movement; there has to be a series of moves that unfold throughout a routine to be considered copyrightable.<\/p>\n

Even if a dance creator does receive a copyright, their power is limited. Are they going to sue people who don\u2019t credit them in their captions? Though several choreographers \u2014 including Keara Wilson, who started the \u201cSavage\u201d challenge \u2014 were able to copyright their dances, that was largely symbolic. Christopher Sprigman, a law professor at NYU, says it\u2019d be difficult if Wilson, for example, wanted to sue people for copying the dance online without credit. But the copying itself might also give the dance its cachet. \u201cWhat makes the dance important socially is that lots of people do it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Creators should think of themselves as businesses, says Shontavia Johnson, associate VP for entrepreneurship and innovation at Clemson University, and explore different avenues to make money, such as licensing dances for video games, dance classes, and selling the dance for a commercial. \u201cSo many people want to go viral \u2014 and I get wanting to go viral, and [wanting] the business opportunities that can come out of it,\u201d she tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cBut eyeballs don\u2019t often equal dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madhavi Sunder, professor of intellectual property at Georgetown Law, notes that this is much deeper than just digital dances \u2014 in fact, she says, appropriation is foundational to this type of law. \u201cHow we define property has often been premised on the theft of native lands and theft of Black labor \u2014 intellectual as well as physical labor \u2014 through enslavement,\u201d she explains. Copyright laws are \u201crife with biases about what counts as art. The Black TikTok strike seems to fundamentally be about distributive justice: Who gets the money?\u201d<\/p>\n

Louis, who made the viral TikTok of himself refusing to dance, says he\u2019s been booted from the app multiple times after speaking out. \u201cI think I\u2019ve built a presence online like I have a target on my back,\u201d he tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. Lately, Louis notes, he watches what he says. (TikTok says it \u201cunequivocally does not moderate content or censor accounts on the basis of race.\u201d)<\/p>\n

Now, creators who might have used TikTok to show off a new piece of choreography are thinking twice. Jaylin Hawkins, a cultural and music critic who goes by Pablo the Don on TikTok, says they haven\u2019t seen a new viral dance trend organically take over the app in quite some time. (This March, for example, the only dance trend that seemed even mildly popular was the choreography to High School Musical<\/em>\u2019s \u201cA Night to Remember.\u201d) TikTok recently tweaked its algorithm, with a goal of diversifying the types of clips that show up on For You pages. Hawkins believes this is moving people away from dance content. \u201cThey want to be the short-form version of YouTube,\u201d Hawkins says.<\/p>\n

Fannita Leggett, a creator with more than a million followers on TikTok, seconds Hawkins\u2019 implication that the app is moving toward content with \u201csustenance.\u201d She says this is why creators are diversifying their content and trying new things \u2014 like the rise in \u201cGet Ready With Me\u201d videos, fashion, and comedy videos. Dancing on the app, meanwhile, has lost its allure for her. \u201cEverybody and their mama can do these dances,\u201d Leggett tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s just not exciting to watch any more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By June 2021, Erick Louis was tired of seeing fellow Black creators on TikTok getting ripped off. Viral dance videos helped songs like Doja Cat\u2019s \u201cSay So\u201d and Lil Nas X\u2019s \u201cOld Town Road\u201d shoot up the pop charts, but the more those dances were copied, the less the people behind them were credited. Black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":96806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,3,105,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Black-Creators-Still-Looking-for-Credit-Compensation-From-Viral-Dance.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96805"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralrecorder.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}