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Can You Really Sue Fortnite For 'Stealing' Your Dance Moves? (theguardian.com)
The creator of the year's biggest game is facing a slew of lawsuits over its alleged use of famous dance moves. But will courts tap to the same tune? From a report: Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star Alfonso Ribeiro alleges that Fornite used his Carlton Dance, devised for a memorable episode of the hit US sitcom, without permission or credit. And earlier this week, Russell Horning, AKA the Backpack Kid, launched his own lawsuit claiming Epic breached copyright laws for including his signature dance move "The Floss." So while the copyright disco fills up and solicitors perform their (wallet) stretching exercises, the big question is: can you realistically copyright a dance move? The answer is yes. Kind of. It's complicated.
"A dance can be protected under copyright law in England under the protection afforded to literary, dramatic or musical works (section 3 (2) of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act)," says Alex Tutty of specialist entertainment law firm Sheridans. "But copyright can subsist in it only when it is recorded in writing or otherwise. It doesn't just exist because you did the dance; it needs to be written down or filmed" This is handy for the Fortnite complainants, because there is video evidence of all of them performing their respective moves. However, it's not quite that easy. "There are all kinds of complexities in practice," says entertainment and tech industry lawyer, Jas Purewal of Purewal & Partners. "For example, who owns the dance -- the original creator, the dancers or the choreographer? How can they prove they actually created something new? How can they show that someone else actually infringed their dance and didn't independently come up with it? The law is pretty archaic, too. It's just not been an area that has had a lot of attention."
"A dance can be protected under copyright law in England under the protection afforded to literary, dramatic or musical works (section 3 (2) of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act)," says Alex Tutty of specialist entertainment law firm Sheridans. "But copyright can subsist in it only when it is recorded in writing or otherwise. It doesn't just exist because you did the dance; it needs to be written down or filmed" This is handy for the Fortnite complainants, because there is video evidence of all of them performing their respective moves. However, it's not quite that easy. "There are all kinds of complexities in practice," says entertainment and tech industry lawyer, Jas Purewal of Purewal & Partners. "For example, who owns the dance -- the original creator, the dancers or the choreographer? How can they prove they actually created something new? How can they show that someone else actually infringed their dance and didn't independently come up with it? The law is pretty archaic, too. It's just not been an area that has had a lot of attention."
Who reads the headline of a post?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I don't know, can you do the due?
are the editors awake?
Can You Really Due Fortnite For 'Stealing' Your Dance Moves?
I'm pretty sure if we had a competent editor here this would have said "Sue Fortnite" instead. Granted this isn't as bad as some other "editor" fuck-ups but this is pretty awful being as it's in the damned headline.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
This is pretty sad
Might want to correct that title. I believe you meant something else.
No, you can't, because due is not a transitive verb.
> Guessing they meant Sue..
I duspect you're right!
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Obviously you can, because he did.
Might want to correct that title. I believe you meant something else.
Hell, it passed spell check. What more do they need? Pass the cheetohs already, the editor is getting the munchies.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Oh, Susan!
That makes a lot more dense. Thank you.
Guessing they meant Sue..
I duspect you're right!
Stop making fun of the editors, dued!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Well, why not?
You can sue someone for singing the same bit of doggerel that you did, or for drawing the same cartoon mouse that you did.
Why not for doing the same dance moves?
No, I don't think you can due the service itself. Now if you tried to sue Epic Games... well still probably no, but there might be a at least a chance under patent law. Don't forget, someone was awarded a patent for playing with your cat with a laser pointer. See 'US5443036A - Method of exercising a cat'. Now under patent law you can do these activities on your own without fear of being sued, but given that Epic is making money by including these dances in the game the plaintive might have a case. But it's going to be slim if at all.
The framing of this in the media and everywhere I read about it is very interesting to me. Everyone wants to talk about it like its a copyright issue when I don't believe it is.
Epic Games stole a PERFORMANCE, not a DANCE. what i mean by this is for many of the dance moves in Fortnite, you can clearly tell that the moves were motion captured from source material. All Epic had to do is hire a performer to dance the dance then motion cap that, and keep evidence that that is what they did. but they didn't do that. The Carlton and Poison are both PERFORMANCES FOR HIRE by the actors.
If anything, Epic owes licensing fees of some sort to the rights owners of fresh prince of bel-air and scrubs. and then i would presume those entities should find a way to get some money back to the performers as well, but that would deal with their contracts with the production company.
The Ministry of Silly Walks
Due Fortnite?
Proofread your posts @msmash
I find it highly unlikely there are any dance moves in existence that are unique, it seems like you could always find "prior form" as it were.
The Carlton Dance it turns out, was after all stolen from Courtney Cox & Eddie Murphy - and I'm sure they saw it somewhere.
P.S. If someone ends up linking to TMZ on Slashdot for relevant information, maybe that's a good indicator the story was not a good fit for the site...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I get dance routines being copyrighted but things like the floss are basically only like 4 similar movements being repeated. Is that enough to copyright? Not only that but it's not even another human performing the dance. They made a digital character perform the dance which is essentially a bunch of drawings on a computer screen tied together to appear like movement. In that case isn't a drawing of something materially different from performing a dance move? Can anyone think of any cases where artwork of a copyrighted movement has been tried?
I feel like intent matters. The gaming company wanted to pimp their product using pop culture references that they expected people would recognize and feel positively about. This isn't some kid in a restaurant who happens to end up on YouTube performing the move for his friends. Epic tried to add value to their product by stealing the work of others. It's pretty much what copyright, performance and intellectual properly laws were written for.
Can the Porn Acts be affected?
The copyright itself would belong to the media company at this point.
I imagine it would be straightforward to amend the suit to add Quincy Jones Productions and AT&Warner Bros. as plaintiffs.
I doubt Alfonso Ribeiro is the owner of that dance. I'm sure it is owned whatever company owns the rights to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air show.
He built that IP, he can prove that. Anyone can sue for anything, the question is can he win? Of course they'll settle it, Fortnight has millions of idiot children racking up debits for their parents, write a check and keep stacking.
He doesn't own that IP though! If anyone can sue it would be Fox, or whoever it was that produced the show. He was under contract to them when being filmed for that show. Just like if someone creates an unlicensed Han Solo toy it would be Disney/Lucasfilm suing not Harrison Ford
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Greed is a cancer that destroys everything.
And the result is a unique creation.
Most things that are patented or copyrighted are a combination of inspiration and uniqueness.
So no, that won't do anything to change the argument of his lawsuit.
Work Safe Porn
1) Fortnite literally named the dances after who they stole em from ("Fresh" referencing "Fresh Prince"!?)
2) Nobody gave two shits about all the dances World of Warcraft stole and put into that game. To those paying attention, it was just an extension of meme culture. "Tunak Tunak Tun? AWESOME!!"
https://wiki.teamfortress.com/...
This has been a thing since 2016.
...when everything is a crime, everyone is a criminal.
unless you have a permit from the ministry of silly walks, you do
How is copyright law in England applicable? This is a US company being sued by US citizens in US court.
Why not look at US copyright law pertaining to dance moves?
https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ52.pdf
Footloose... lol
[($)]
You can sue anyone for anything, just like you can ask for anything. Can you send me a million dollars? I could sue you for using a microwave transmitter to control my brain, forcing me to wear a tinfoil hat, with loss of income as nobody will hire me and emotional trauma. I could sue no problem. On the other hand none of us would expect me to win the lawsuit.