The Electric aka The Electric Slide is a four wall line dance set to the Marcia Griffiths' song Electric Boogie. Choreographer Ric Silver created the dance in 1976.[1]
As early as 2002, Silver had started filling DMCA-based takedown notices to YouTube users who were posting videos of people performing the 18 step dance variation. There are several variations of The Electric being done - The Freeze (16 step), Cowboy Motion (24 step), Cowboy Boogie (24 step) and what will be known as The Electric Slide 2 (18 step). Variations must from now on all carry the listing "a variation of 'The Electric' choreographed by Ric Silver"
On March 1, 2007, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit against Silver, asking the court to protect the free speech rights of a videographer who captured a few steps of the dance in a documentary video posted to the Internet.[2]
On May 22, 2007, the EFF came to an agreement to settle the lawsuit: the settlement states that Mr. Silver will license the Electric Slide under a Creative Commons license[3] and to also post the new license on any of his current or future websites that mention the Electric Slide. EFF agreed to see that all users of The Electric Slide reference Mr. Silver's name as Choreographer.