Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Florida

Can martial arts moves be copyrighted?

I'm interested in producing an online instructional video database, as well as dvd's, of martial arts techniques.

There are already hundreds of instructional dvds available, many of which contain techniques already contained on other dvd's. When these techniques become known, they spread quickly through the martial arts community.

Martial arts instructors view these dvd's and teach the techniques to their students. The students use them in tournaments. Many martial arts websites feature these techniques on their websites. The techniques are often filmed and posted to YouTube and other sites.

It would be difficult to determine who ''created'' a technique, and there are thousands of techniques. Most are subtle variations of other techniques. The big question is...

How concerned do I need to be about this? Do I need to reference the source where I learned it from?

And, if I do need to reference where I learned them from, can I demonstrate any techniques I want as long as I reference the source I learned it from?

Could I use just one general reference section on my website to cover all the techniques, or do I need to reference each one individually?

Thank you.


Asked on 4/03/07, 5:42 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Johm Smith tom's

Re: Can martial arts moves be copyrighted?

There are probably techniques that you can trace back and then the rest and you should handle the two types differently. You also should try to protect the ones you develop. My firm focuses on Internet, media and entertainment law.

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Answered on 4/04/07, 9:04 am


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