This summer, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division hosted three interns in continuation of the spring 2019 Barnard course Digital Footprints: Archival/New Media Research at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Barnard rising junior, Amelia Haynes, a political science major, diligently investigated the photo collection of Lisa Miller in order to clear the copyright for digitization. Through this process, she learned about the larger relationship between the Dance Division and rightsholders.  

While working at the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, I was often asked by patrons why more of the Library’s materials aren’t made available online. After spending a summer as an intern attempting to expand access to The Library’s Digital Collections, the answer is simple: dance copyright. 

My interest in dance copyright was sparked at Barnard College; I recently took a course titled "Digital Footprints: Archival/New Media Research at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts," in which I learned about the issues surrounding dance copyright; while it protects creators, it also may restrict access to their work. 

Copyright is a consideration in nearly all aspects of work at the Library and limits the Library’s ability to make materials more accessible to the public. Copyright laws protect creative work by securing creators’ exclusive rights; this includes the protection against reproduction, distribution, public displays, and the creation of derivative works. Though the Dance Division of the Library for the Performing Arts is the largest dance archive in the world, the Division does not own the copyright protections to all of its materials. Copyright is often maintained by the creators and, as such, limits sharing beyond the walls of the Library. 

Digitizing materials, such as a video, involves making a digital copy of the work. This is considered by law to be a “derivative work,” and is unauthorized and, at times, illegal, if the Library does not own the copyright for the material.

During my internship at the Dance Division, my primary project was researching whether or not the Library had the rights to certain photo collections; if so, that would allow the Library to digitize and distribute them via The New York Public Library’s Digital Collections portal. As increasing accessibility is one of the main goals of the division, I began by making a list of all photo collections in the Dance Division’s catalog and archives, including the potential rightsholders for each collection. I consulted the Library’s rights team to see if we had existing licenses with any of these rightsholders and, after being informed that we did not, I narrowed my focus to single-creator collections (collections in which a single person owns the rights to the material, such as photograph collections where one photographer took and maintains the rights to all of the photos). Reaching out to rightsholders is time-consuming and often fruitless, so collections from one creator are faster and easier to clear. (For example, securing the rights to a video involves obtaining copyright from multiple rightsholders including the choreographer, costume designer(s), lighting designer(s), set designer(s), and videographer(s).)

After identifying single-creator collections, I then reviewed the deeds of gift (a contract between the Dance Division and the donors) for these collections. I examined multiple photo collections to evaluate their usefulness to researchers, considering the skill of the photographer, the acclaim of the works, and the popularity of the dancers. 

I eventually settled on a photo collection by photographer Lisa Miller, based on the quality of the photos, the fame of the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre dancers depicted, and the fact that the Division had been granted copyright for the collection by the donor. I heavily researched photographer Lisa Miller using online databases, and ensured the images were not copyrighted by third parties or had been used for commercial purposes. Throughout the process, I corresponded with the Library’s rights team to ensure that I was doing my due diligence before the collection was approved for digitization. Finally, I compiled all the information available about each photograph, as it may be helpful for metadata creation in the digitization process.

This laborious process resulted in a single photo collection of 206 images being placed in the Dance Division’s queue for digitization. Photo collections are typically the easiest to digitize; the process of digitizing a video is much longer as there are far more rightsholders involved (e.g. choreographer, videographer, performers, companies, designers, etc.) and copyright must be obtained from each party. This is one of the challenges the Dance Division faces: the most in-demand material is not always the easiest to digitize.

The process of researching rights in order to clear materials for digitization is extremely time-consuming. This project consumed the majority of my 10-week internship, and there are currently no Dance Division staff members working on digitization full time. The Division staff’s main priority is assisting Library patrons and researchers, and expanding and taking care of the Division’s collections. Unfortunately, there is little staff time remaining to work on digitization efforts. 

Copyright is designed to protect creators, but a drawback of the system is that it limits the archive’s ability to make work accessible. Digitization for sharing via the web is a relatively new component of the Dance Division and, while we are requesting digitization privileges in current contracts, we still need explicit permission to digitize older collections. 

Recent donors to the archive give explicit permission for their work to be digitized, and some also give money to finance the digitization of their collections. While this is a great help to the Division, my hope is that the current generation of choreographers and artists will document their work with digitization and digital preservation in mind, and be willing to make their work more accessible.