Regional Folk Dances — Key Changes

Entry	Year	Description	Impact
Copyright Amendment 2012	2012	Section 27 of the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 inserted sections 38A and 38B. These address a performer’s economic rights in recording and communicating a performance, and moral rights concerning identification and prejudicial distortion. They matter when a folk-dance performance is recorded or reused; they do not turn an entire inherited dance tradition into the property of the person filming it.	In a hypothetical festival recording, distinguish the dancers’ performance from the recording and any separately protected music. Permission for one use should not be assumed to settle every later use. Attribution, agreed uses and the relevant rights need attention alongside documentation quality. The amendment is a specific legal development, not proof of an automatic collective monopoly over a regional style or a substitute for community participation in safeguarding.