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Brittany Morris

Abstract

In 2019, the Copyright Office refused registration for two "dances" that were highly recognizable and traceable to specific individuals. The "Carlton" was refused because it is a "simple routine that is not registrable as a choreographic work." The "Milly Rock" was also refused registration on the same grounds. Epic Games was selling the dances as an add-on to its wildly popular video game, Fortnite, which primarily derives profits from microtransactions. The app TikTok is experiencing an analogous problem. In July 2021, Black Creators were on strike from the app.1 They alleged that the original dances they created for the app were being pushed down in the algorithm while non-Black creators recreating their dances were being promoted. With Carlton and 2 Milly, two famous persons, their path forward was clear; they needed protection to profit from their work. With TikTok creators, the path is less clear. The TikTok content creators need people to recreate their work for promotional purposes. These dances are wildly popular, but as they rise in popularity and make debuts on television programs, they are rarely performed by the choreographer and instead by "TikTok Stars." Complicating matters is that the dances themselves are worth relatively little. The value comes from the exposure and opportunities as a recognizable and marketable personality. For instance, Addison Rae (88.5 million followers as of August 2022) makes only a fraction of her income from TikTok, with the bulk of her net worth coming from brand deals, modeling, and a record deal.2 This paper explores the novel situation in which copyright protection seems to be counterproductive to the artist's goals and proposes data-driven solutions that may help Black creators reap the benefits of their contributions while simultaneously helping "New Social Media" companies navigate the digital content creators’ values.

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