Recently, circumstances for dance creation are changed, so choreographers choreograph in various methods. For example, employee choreographer, guest choreographer, joint choreographer, assistant choreographer, repertory choreographer, musical choreographer, collaboration choreographer. The purpose of this study is to examine, based on Korean Copyright Law and precedents of Korean court, who owns the copyright in these various choreographic participation methods and the effect of copyright ownership. As a result, this study concludes as follow: First, in case of employee choreographer, when choreography was done as part of his job under employer's planning, a work was played in the name of employer and as long as they have no other set in a contract or employees' rules, employer has a copyright. If not, employee has a copyright. Second, in case of guest choreographer, he or she has a copyright. If client and choreographer have agreed to transfer copyright to client by the contract, only author's property rights are transferred to client and author's moral rights are left to choreographer. Third, in case of joint choreographer, when several choreographers created a work jointly, and each contribution part is indivisibly united, so it is not available separately, everyone have copyright. But when each contribution part is available separately, each choreographer has copyright to it. Fourth, in case of assistant choreographer, only when he or she created really to some degree, he or she has copyright with choreographer. Fifth, in case of repertory choreographer, when he or she changes original work enough to be accepted as new work by social norm and his or her work is actually similar original work, he or she has secondary copyright only to the new elements of the derivative work. Sixth, in case of musical, when choreographer creates dance part, he or she has copyright alone to it. Seventh, in case of collaboration, artists of different genres can't generally have copyright to choreography, however, when a fusional work was created jointly, everyone has joint copyright.

Copyright refers to the exclusive and monopolistic right, being given to the creator of creative works that includes literary, artistic or musical ones. According to the present copyright law of South Korea, dance is categorized as a kind of theatrical works, but it is necessary to discuss whether or not such a classification is appropriate. Of course, both a dance and a theatrical work can be classified into performance arts as the two genres are most closely adjacent to each other. Since dance and play have their distinct characteristics as unique genres, however, the application of a copyright should be made from different perspectives. This study aims to examine the importance of establishing professional and concrete regulations with regard to the dance works and discussing what to consider for that purpose. One of the foremost and top priority concerns for the dance works in the nation is that the domestic dance community should come up with its own copyright regulations independent from the theatrical works. As the present copyright law for the theatrical works does not consider the unique characteristics of dance such as choreography, it is hard for the domestic dance community to properly claim and exercise its rights. Therefore, independent copyright regulations are urgently needed to protect the specialized rights for the dance works apart from the theatrical works. As part of the efforts to better protect the rights for the dance works, it is also necessary to submit the storyboard of choreography or the video clips to help meet the requirements of the copyright law. It is necessary to reestablish the proper regulations for the copyright for dance after having technically and concretely examined the characteristics of dances performed in the nation and ultimately to work for the revision of the current copyright law for dance.

This study summarizes issues related to copyright issues around dance or choreography in Korea. As a result of analyzing 42 previous studies, which was searched at RISS(Research Information Sharing Services), three major issues were aroused. First, the concept of dance copyright should be defined more clearly, and the requirements for recognition of creativity in dance works should be clarified. Second, in order to activate dance copyright protection, it is necessary to fix the ephemeral phenomena of dance in tangible media. Third, dance copyright is classified as a dramatic works in Korean Copyright Act, but the term is not appropriate. The main contents of this discussion reviews copyright law and precedents of each country, including Korea. Based on these discussions, a suggested improvement plan for the protection of dance copyright is proposed.