{"id":57351,"date":"2018-12-19T03:10:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T10:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/how-fortnites-dance-moves-sparked-new-lawsuits-against-epic-games\/"},"modified":"2018-12-19T03:10:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T10:10:02","slug":"how-fortnites-dance-moves-sparked-new-lawsuits-against-epic-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taterboy.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/how-fortnites-dance-moves-sparked-new-lawsuits-against-epic-games\/","title":{"rendered":"How Fortnite\u2019s dance moves sparked new lawsuits against Epic Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

A growing cluster of actors, musicians and viral internet stars have Fortnite <\/span><\/a> in their crosshairs. The smash hit third-person shooter is free to play but generates mountains of revenue through in-game microtransactions. Those purchases lure avid Fortnite players to spend real-life cash on virtual cosmetic items, like special character skins (today: a winter skiing set!) and, most importantly, dance moves.<\/p>\n

Now, Fortnite creator Epic Games faces two new lawsuits over dance moves: one from actor Alfonso Ribeiro<\/a>, who played Carlton on the TV hit \u201cFresh Prince of Bel Air\u201d in the 1990s and another from the family of Russell Horning<\/a>, better known as \u201cBackpack Kid,\u201d who created a viral dance called \u201cthe Floss.\u201d Horning\u2019s lawsuit also names 2K Sports, maker of NBA 2K, for that game\u2019s depiction of his dance. Earlier in December, rapper 2 Milly filed a lawsuit<\/a> against Fortnite maker Epic over the game\u2019s depiction of his dance move, the Milly Rock, which the game calls \u201cSwipe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ribeiro\u2019s lawyer provided TechCrunch with the following statement:<\/p>\n

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It is widely recognized that Mr. Ribeiro\u2019s likeness and intellectual property have been misappropriated by Epic Games in the most popular video game currently in the world, Fortnite. Epic has earned record profits off of downloadable content in the game, including emotes like \u201cFresh.\u201d Yet Epic has failed to compensate or even ask permission from Mr. Ribeiro for the use of his likeness and iconic intellectual property. Therefore, Mr. Ribeiro is seeking his fair and reasonable share of profits Epic has earned by use of his iconic intellectual property in Fortnite and as a result is requesting through the courts that Epic cease all use of Mr. Ribeiro\u2019s signature dance.<\/p>\n

Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht LLP is also pursuing similar claims against Take-Two Interactive and Visual Concepts, developer of the NBA 2K series of video games, on behalf of Mr. Ribeiro.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Fortnite\u2019s in-game dance moves are ubiquitous, both in-game and out \u2014 and that\u2019s part of the problem. The game lifted its most popular dance moves from various online viral moments across the internet, TV, movies and music. In most cases the in-game dances are so well-loved because they copy their source material so precisely. While the game lifts these dances move for move, making them widely recognizable, it doesn\u2019t refer to the source material directly and renames the dances with generic nicknames. In Fortnite, the \u201cTidy\u201d dance is Snoop Dogg\u2019s \u201cDrop It Like It\u2019s Hot\u201d dance, \u201cJubilation\u201d is Elaine\u2019s dance from Seinfeld, \u201cPure Salt\u201d (not really a dance, some of these are just emotes) is from the Salt Bae meme, Psy\u2019s Gangnam Style dance and so on. In the case of the Carlton dance, Fortnite gives a small nod to the dance\u2019s origins by naming it \u201cFresh.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The game draws from a wide pool of source material, but black creators in particular have spoken out about Fortnite\u2019s monetization moves. Black artists have a long history<\/a> of seeing their work achieve broad mainstream popularity without commercial gain or credit to accompany it. When Chance the Rapper tweeted about Fortnite\u2019s relationship to black artists in July, BlocBoy JB \u2014 creator of the dance the game calls \u201cHype\u201d \u2014 endorsed the idea that artists like himself should be paid if Fortnite is making money from their moves.<\/p>\n

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Wat You Said We Need Dat Cash @FortniteGame<\/a> @EAMaddenNFL<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/hFRH0Db1Mx<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 BlocBoy JB (@BlocBoy_JB) July 13, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Fortnite\u2019s default in-game emote is a dance that actor Donald Faison performs on the show Scrubs, and Faison has also taken notice.<\/p>\n

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Dear fortnite\u2026 I\u2019m flattered? Though part of me thinks I should talk to a lawyer\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Donald Faison (@donald_faison) April 1, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Fortnite\u2019s decision to animate its characters doing popular dance moves in and of itself isn\u2019t new. Overwatch creator and Epic competitor Blizzard includes popular dance emotes in its own multiplayer shooter, and before that in multiplayer RPG World of Warcraft. In Blizzard\u2019s case, the depiction of dance moves, some for sale via lootboxes, isn\u2019t quite as on the nose nor does it mine current internet culture as thoroughly.<\/p>\n

For example, the Overwatch character Junkrat does a version of the running man dance that looks a lot like a version of the dance by Will Smith\u2019s character on \u201cThe Fresh Prince.\u201d That dance was itself popularized by Janet Jackson in her \u201cRhythm Nation\u201d music video.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Other Overwatch dance emotes are drawn from traditional Japanese dance and anime<\/a>. In Blizzard\u2019s classic game World of Warcraft, the\u00a0blood elf characters feature dances<\/a>\u00a0culled from the movie \u201cNapoleon Dynamite\u201d and Britney Spears music videos. In World of Warcraft\u2019s case, these moves weren\u2019t for sale in-game \u2014 the microtransaction model hadn\u2019t yet really taken off during the game\u2019s heyday.<\/p>\n

Epic Games was likely aware that lifting these dance moves and selling them to gamers might cause a stir among some creators, but by that time it was probably already making too much money to care. Notably, the company faced a high-profile copycat accusation<\/a> from the creator of\u00a0PlayerUnknown\u2019s Battlegrounds (PUBG), a battle royale-style game widely understood to have inspired Fortnite\u2019s gameplay. PUBG dropped the lawsuit in June of this year<\/a>, likely after a substantial settlement.<\/p>\n

Epic also appears to have quietly paid at least one creator to settle a potential legal threat. Dancer Gabby David, who created the Fortnite dance called the \u201cElectro Shuffle,\u201d appears to have settled with Epic Games around a year ago for the game\u2019s depiction of her choreography, according to forum posts and her Twitter account. Epic Games declined to comment to TechCrunch about the details of the settlement.<\/p>\n

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All three individuals suing Epic Games over Fortnite dances are being represented by intellectual property lawyer David L. Hecht and we\u2019re likely to see more artists and internet stars signing on with Hecht before this is all over. We don\u2019t know Epic\u2019s next move, but as some players have suggested, it would be easy enough for the gamemaker to add some kind of tie-in crediting the creators for their dances. Epic happily partners with entertainment companies<\/a> and even the NFL<\/a> for sure to be lucrative in-game promotional crossovers, so it\u2019s tough to say something like this would be out of place in the game.<\/p>\n

Given the complexity of copyright law and the fact that none of the individuals holds copyright of their respective dances, it\u2019s not clear if any of the latest legal action against Fortnite\u2019s creators will hold water. Still, given its deep pockets \u2014 Epic just raised a $1.25 billion<\/em> round<\/a> two months ago \u2014 settling a handful of small lawsuits over the game\u2019s well-loved dance emotes is a small price to pay for\u00a0Fortnite\u2019s colossal success.<\/p>\n

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PUBG\u2019s creators are suing over Fortnite similarities<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

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A growing cluster of actors, musicians and viral internet stars have Fortnite in their crosshairs. The smash hit third-person shooter is free to play but generates mountains of revenue through in-game microtransactions. Those purchases lure avid Fortnite players to spend real-life cash on virtual cosmetic items, like special character skins (today: a winter skiing set!)… Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[174,377],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games-media","category-gaming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t