Electric Slide Creator Embarks On One-Man Crusade Against Bad Choreography

If the man who created the Electric Slide has his way, videoclips like this one will be lost to YouTube forever. From CNet:

Richard Silver, who filed the copyright for the Electric Slide in 2004, said on one of his Web pages that the DeGeneres Show had been putting up a legal fight as he tried to get compensation for a segment that aired in February 2006 in which actress Teri Hatcher and other dancers performed the popular wedding shuffle. …

But on the YouTube page Silver himself posted showing the Electric Slide, he wrote, “Any video that shows my choreography being done incorrectly is being removed. I don’t want future generations having to learn it wrong and then relearn it as I am being faced with now because of certain sites and (people) that have been teaching it incorrectly and without my permission. That’s the reason I (copyrighted) it in the first place.”

This is probably the most absurd example of the recent Digital Millennium Copyright Act crackdowns on YouTube–surely a poorly performed dance can be exempt from copyright laws under the “fair use” provision? After all, some people, well, just can’t dance, but their lack of rhythm shouldn’t prevent them from displaying their attempts at boogie-oogie-oogieing on the Internet. (Be warned, amateur b-boys: Silver’s claiming ownership over popping, locking, and breakdancing, too.)

‘Electric Slide’ on slippery DMCA slope [news.com, via I Rock Cleveland]