LEGALIZE BALLET
A ballerina and intellectual property lawyer, Allyn Ginns runs the Legal Link program in Miami.
MIAMI, FL
We pulled the Mobile Incubator into the back lot of Locust Projects in Miami’s Design District to meet with Allyn Ginns Ayers, the Director of LegalLink. Her program provides free and low cost legal services as well as pro bono attorney referrals to artists in Florida.
Allyn has been dancing since she was a little girl and she never gave it up despite the pressures of going to law school and working in intellectual property law.
“When I started there I stopped dancing. But it felt incomplete. It felt like something was missing. My second year I started dancing again.”
Today Allyn is a company dancer in Dance Now!, a contemporary dance company in Miami, where she trains and performs in ballet, modern, and jazz dance. Her repertory includes: Light Rain Pas de Deux by Gerald Arpino, Odisea by Carolyn Dorfman, Limon Suite by Jose Limon and Daniel Lewis, Lacrymosa by Edward Stierle.
“I felt that with my background as a dancer, and in caring about art and cultural production, [intellectual property] felt like a good fit for me.”
Allyn gets involved with many different creator’s intellectual property like makers, writers, performers, artists, and designers. She’s sat in with a jeweler when their work was being imitated, going to their workshop, hearing the history of her making, the philosophy of the design, to establish her as an original creator. Another client was a composer whose work was being used without permission on TV and YouTube, and Allyn worked on copyright suits to enforce the composer’s rights and get their royalty for the usage.
Creating something new is incredibly precarious, challenging, and so losing the fruit of your labor is not just a financial loss, it can be emotionally devastating. Allyn’s stories of creators fighting back shows the importance of knowing your rights, and taking advantage of existing services. Establishing authorship is just one aspect of being competitive in a healthy way.
PODCAST
BONUS PODCAST
DISCUSSION
Allyn talks about the artist known as Ahol Sniffs Glue and how American Eagle took his copyrighted imagery worldwide without asking permission or offering compensation. She also mentions a wedding videographer who was using her client’s music compositions and had to legally enforce their rights.
Are you using other creator’s work in your creations? How are acknowledging or compensating them?
Many artists don’t protect their work until it’s too late. Allyn’s point is you have to document everything including ephemeral works like experiences or performances. “It can seem formal to put a form over something without a form… The wording is that in order to get a copyright it has to have a fixed and tangible means of expression.” You can learn more about trademarks, patents and copyrights in this video series from the US Patent & Trade Office.
What aspects of your work could be copied? What steps are you taking to protect them?