Can I reuse the dance curriculum I wrote for another school?

I wrote a dance curriculum for a school a few years ago and want to use it as a base for my new studio. Since it was my own ideas and methods, am I allowed to legally do that even though the curriculum was written for another school? There wasn’t any contract involved, and I was just paid a stipend to create it. Thoughts?

So if you were paid for it, doesn’t that mean the school owns the curriculum? :thinking:

Yeah, they own the documents themselves, but not my personal teaching methods or ideas. I checked with a lawyer, and I can still use my methods to create new stuff.

Wait, so you can’t use the old curriculum at all, even as a template?

Not exactly. I can use it as inspiration to make new material, just can’t use the exact same documents for commercial purposes.

Did you sign anything that said they’d own the whole thing? Like an agreement or anything?

Nope, no contract at all. Just got paid to write it. That’s part of why I was curious about what I could legally reuse.

So the fact that they paid you doesn’t mean they own everything, right?

Exactly. They only own the document I gave them, not my overall teaching method.

I guess you just need to make sure any new version is different enough. But hey, if it’s your own teaching style, it should be fine, right?

Exactly, that’s what I’m aiming for. Just making something new, based on my old ideas.

IDK if you’re planning to make it public, but could you get into trouble even if the new version looks kinda similar?

Nah, as long as it’s not identical to the old docs. It’s more about not using the exact same files.

So basically you can’t just copy-paste the old curriculum? Makes sense.