Copyright
Since dramaturgy is defined in a general way and the function of a dramaturg may vary from production to production, the copyright issues regarding it in the United States have very vague borders.
In 2006 there was debate based on the question of the extent to which a dramaturg can claim ownership of a production, such as the case of Jonathan Larson, the author of the musical Rent and Lynn Thomson, the dramaturg on the production. Thomson claimed that she was a co-author of the work and that she never assigned, licensed or otherwise transferred her rights. She asked that the court declare her a co-author of Rent and grant her 16% of the author's share of the royalties. Although she made her claim only after the show became a Broadway hit, the case is not without precedent. For instance, 15% of the royalties of Angels in America go to playwright Tony Kushner's dramaturg. On June 19, 1998 the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the original court's ruling that Thompson was not entitled to be credited with co-authorship of Rent and that she was not entitled to royalties. The case was ultimately settled out of court with Thomson receiving an undisclosed sum after she threatened to remove her material from the production.
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