blocks for a pantomime, in much the same way that notes and short musical phrases provide the basic material for a composer. Pantomimes that incorporate stock gestures, ordinary motor activities, or even athletic exercises may be protected by copyright, provided that the work as a whole contains a sufficient amount of original authorship. See Teller v. Dogge, 110 U.S.P.Q.2d 1302, 1306 [D. Nev. 2013) ("While [defendant] is correct that magic tricks are not copyrightable,... the mere fact that a dramatic work or pantomime includes a magic trick, or even that a particular illusion is its central feature does not render it devoid of copyright protection").
Example:
• Irwin Williams created a complex pantomime titled, Waiting for Sam. At one point in the production the performer pretends to walk down a flight of stairs while using a partition to conceal his movements from the audience. While the overall production could be registered as a pantomime, the U.S. Copyright Office would reject a claim limited to this standard technique.
806.5 Uncopyrightable Pantomimes
The U.S. Copyright Office is charged with administering the provisions of the Copyright Act and with issuing regulations for the administration of the copyright system that are consistent with the statute. The Office has no authority to register claims to copyright in material that falls outside the scope of federal statutory protection. Some of the more common types of uncopyrightable movements are discussed in Sections 806.5(A) and 806.5(B).
806.5(A) De Minimis Movements
As discussed in Section 806.1, pantomime is the art of imitating, presenting, or acting out situations, characters, or events through the use of movements, gestures, and facial expressions. Individual movements, gestures, or expressions by themselves are not copyrightable. Likewise, the U.S. Copyright Office cannot register a pantomime consisting of a few stock gestures, movements, or facial expressions with minor linear or spatial variations, such as pretending to be stuck inside an invisible box or using stiff arms and legs to suggest the movement of a mechanical doll. Cf. 37 C.F.R. § 202.1(a).
806.5(B) Ordinary Motor Activities, Functional Physical Activities, Competitive Events, Feats of Physical Skill or Dexterity, and the Like
Choreography and pantomime are the only types of works comprised exclusively of bodily movements that are eligible for copyright protection under Section 102(a)(4) of the Copyright Act. Functional physical movements and ordinary motor activities — in and of themselves — do not represent the type of authorship that Congress intended to protect as choreography or pantomime. Registration of Claims to Copyright, 77 Fed. Reg. at 37,607.
The U.S. Copyright Office cannot register a claim to copyright in functional physical movements that merely implement an idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which the
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