Epic Games finds itself facing a fresh lawsuit after YouTuber and choreographer Kyle Hanagami claims that the 'It's Complicated' emote used in Fortnite is actually based on one of his own dance moves.
Although the emote was introduced to the game in August 2020, Hanagami's move dates back to 2017. He has asked for a court order to remove the emote from the game entirely, along with legal fees and unspecified compensation.
It's not the first time Epic has faced a lawsuit over alleged stolen dance moves, but Hanagami will supposedly have an advantage with his own claim, given that he states he owns the copyright to the 'It's Complicated' move at the time of the filing.
Previous lawsuits included Fresh Prince of Bel Air actor Alfonso Ribeiro, who sued the company for the use of his famous 'Carlton Dance'. Shortly after, 'Backpack Kid' sued Epic Games for its use of the 'Floss' dance, as he allegedly believed the company was taking advantage of his creation and subsequent success.
Do you think Hanagami's lawsuit will yield any results? Which side do you fall on? Let us know in the comments.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 44
People are still trying to sue Fortnite over dances?
You can't copyright a short dance move, it's like copyrighting words and letters.
Copyright laws are already a big mess, copyright is being used to censor people, things may get even worse if dances became eligible for copyright, and they want Epic Games to lose those lawsuits just because they hate Fortnite.
Ubisoft should bring out a game called Just Lawsuit.
sigh I miss the Epic Games of the 90s...
Dances shouldn’t count as intellectual property. That’s ridiculous.
@victordamazio
You can't copyright a word, but it does seem possible to copyright a dance. However, it appears to be tricky, and the enforceability seems lackluster.
@CaptainCluck so a professional choreographer who puts in huge time, effort and money into creating a dance routine for a performance should not be allowed any redress if someone takes that choreography and passes it off as their own?
sings You can’t fight city hall! You can’t fight corporate, America! They are big and we are small!
Well that's rude seeing as how they have raised over $100 million for Ukraine over the past week.
@Rambler
Not for some standalone individual dance move like what Fortnite uses. A long choreography lasting many minutes and incorporating many dance moves in a certain order - maybe.
Imagine if today, they decided that you can copyright a dance, not just a long coreography tied to music, but a short dance move with no music, and that decision is retroactive, it will not just apply to dances made in the future, but for dances made previously, because famous dances from a lot of media from the past are the ones powerful people want to monetize.
Enjoy all the legal trouble of editing past content to remove all the dances that were copied from somewhere else, enjoy all the justifications that these were just fun references that they won't care, enjoy millions of YouTube videos removed because they contained copyrighted dances, enjoy people who may not even have created the dance, using this to censor opinions they disagree, enjoy another power that big companies have over us, enjoy waiting 95 years to dance the same dance someone else created, but at least Fortnite got BTFO'd.
@CaptainCluck
This is a bit like the legal murkiness of a melody being copyrighted in a song.
But you can copyright a jingle - which to all intents and purposes is a small identifiable piece of music.
All that seems to happen is that lawyers get money!
@Rambler
Definitely legal murkiness! It’s just my opinion though. As much as I don’t like Epic, I think it would be a great shame if the moonwalk, Gangnam style, Macarena, Cha-Cha slide, Hammertime, Running Man, etc, were copyrighted. Apologies for the outdated references!
I know Nintendo likes to sue the hey out of everyone, but I cannot see them suing someone over the Kirby Dance.
I know I'll copyright the way I stand and the way I sit and make some easy money from it scheming laugh
...And nothing of value was lost.
@victordamazio And what if someone like the National Football League who has nothing else to do with their day but go around and find churches playing their game and sue them for putting a game on the TV.
@victordamazio I politely disagree with that, some people put a lot of effort into dancing and choreographing their dances. You shouldn’t be able to just steal whatever you feel like, even if it’s only a few seconds.
I’ve never played Fortnite, but I’ve always despised the fact it steals all its dances and never creates anything original.
@CaptainCluck
There's that sample or parody get-out for copyright, I think? In the way that you can post a scene from an film to YouTube but not the entire movie.
And if you make a comedy version of a song, it's not copyright infringement as it counts as fair game. Or something.
But I know what you mean - as a piece of pop culture, some things should be allowed if they become indelible?
I was going to comment on "happy birthday" having been in copyright for years and nothing happening, but it looked like Warner's earned $2m a year from it!
My god, it saddens me how many people in this comment section agree dances shouldn’t be copyrighted.
Erm, but why has it taken him this long to do it? August 2020 was when it was put in the game, sorry but this it just stupid
If someone made money off something I created, I totally get it. When you see someone making a living or millions off something you created, spawned from your skill & personality, you will feel ripped off.
@WoomyNNYes @BabyYoda71 I get your points, but the problem is that originally, copyright laws were meant to protect the small guy from the big guy, you create something, and someone is making millions of it, you deserve a share.
Then, copyright laws were completely destroyed to protect the big guy from the small guy, what would actually happen is that big companies would own thousands of popular dances from their huge catalogue of movies, shows, music videos and other stuff, and sue the hell of anyone that uses them even if it's just a reference, even if it's just some kids posting something on YouTube, and we would have to wait decades until those dances lost their copyright, if they proved that these dances are important to make an actual product, they could even trademark those dances and own them forever, in the end, copyright would not be used to foster creativity, it would be used to hinder creativity, like it happens now.
Copyright laws became a big mess, at this point, even if you think it's fair that people should copyright their dances, allowing dances to be copyrighted would open another floodgate and I don't want it.
The article should have mentioned the side-by-side video that the law firm produced.
https://youtu.be/vXYDr9o_FJY
@BabyYoda71 Also, you can't "steal" an idea, because if I "steal" your idea, you still have your idea.
If you make something, and I take it away without your consent, that's stealing because you don't have it anymore, but if you make something and I make a copy of it, you still have the original, nothing was stolen.
Copyright is important to make it illegal to make copies of the work of other people, so the creator can live from their creations, but creativity is not just creating something from scratch, taking stuff other people made and making them different, or even better, is also creativity, copyright laws are too restrictive and hindering creativity instead of fostering it.
I'm fairly torn on this. On one hand it seems strange to copyright a sequence of body movements, but on the other hand, I do see why someone wouldn't want they're dance to be sold by a multi-million dollar company without getting any proceeds
@victordamazio Article literally states Hanagami owns the copyright so not sure who you are trying to convince
Sueing for body movements again? Copyright really is a joke
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@Arawn93 So? Doesn't give him the right to sue since it's just body movements.
How about I Copyright that act of Walking because No-One has it copyrighted. Now everyone pays me Royalties. He act is pure BS has nothing grounded in reality unlike a long dedicated choregraphed dance moves.
@lolwhatno Yeah… the fact that it’s short sort of makes it less relevant, but as a dancer myself, I’d be mad if someone stole something I made up and made money off of it.
@victordamazio Copyright’s a mess, and I doubt ANYTHING will happen here, but I still don’t think Fortnite should ever had done this in the first place.
As for your second message, you just said all copyright is ok. If I’m in high school, and I copy and paste a Wikipedia page into my assignment, is that alright just because I didn’t delete the Wikipedia page? No, because I didn’t do my assignment, so I fail. Fortnite isn’t doing their assignment, they’re ripping off YouTube videos.
@Entrr_username SO? It being “body movements” doesn’t mean the creator of them shouldn’t get anything. A string of body movements make up a dance, same as a string of words makes a phrase. You can copyright a 4-word phrase, so why can’t you copyright a 4-step dance? It’s not easier to come up with a dance than words. Also what do you mean about my parents? Your message to me made no sense.
@SwitchForce There’s a minor difference: Nobody is currently gaining any money/popularity from walking. Fortnite is making tons of money from these dances that they had no part in creating. They don’t even credit the original creators, let alone let them take any money. Fortnite’s making money from this, while the person who created it isn’t. Nobody “ripped off” walking and is getting money from it, so it’s COMPLETELY different.
I want to make a couple things clear on my opinion here: I don’t care about copyright, the whole workings of it is trash and it’s never going to do anything. I don’t even know how it works, so I don’t have any opinion on him having copyrighted it, I just think Fortnite shouldn’t be making money without giving royalties to the creator. Second, I wouldn’t say there’s anything wrong with using other’s dance moves, there’s a lot they could do to fix it. If they credited the original creators, I’d be less mad. If they gave them money, I’d be happy. If Fortnite was a small indie game with no in-app purchases, it’d be fine. Fortnite is getting money off of this, and that’s what bugs me so much.
Its a thin line I think, because on one hand, he made the dance move, on the other hand its not much and he made it years ago, not even that this is the first time I have ever seen the emote, and I don't even think they bring back in the store that often, so its not like fortnite is just marketing off it like that.
But if the guy feels ripped off he feels ripped off.
Isn't the issue, if you create something then you'd have to copy write or trade mark it, otherwise it's kinda free to be replicated ?
@SwitchForce
Walking fell into the public domain many millenniums ago.
@BabyYoda71 One of the lawsuits of Epic "stealing" dance moves (the Carlton one I believe) ended because the dance move wasn't significant enough to warrant the case going further. I don't see why he should get anything (he's clearly in for the money Epic made for Ukraine). And the parents thing was supposed to be an insult though that was unnecessary.
@icomma Body movements aren't copyrightable in the slightest and it's ridiculous to assume so. Besides the dance moves Epic "stole" are nods to the original dances.
People claiming that Epic makes money off the "stolen" dance moves don't realize that they don't sell the dances directly.
What people in the comments are defending that should happen in theory: People who make dances should get money from their work, it's not fair that they create a dance, and big companies make millions out of them, dances should be copyrighted.
What would happen in practice: Big companies would own thousands of popular dances that came from their huge catalogue of movies, shows, cartoons, music videos, videogames and many other media, whenever one employee created a dance, the company would own it, not the employee, and they would sue the hell out of everyone doing these dances in public exhibition, millions of YouTube videos could be taken down thanks to this, even if they are not actually making money from these dances.
Because that's how the entertainment industry is already working, adding dances to the mix would make the mess even bigger.
@Entrr_username As I said, I don’t expect that the lawsuit will go anywhere, and I’m not upset about Epic raising money for Ukraine… but they’ve been doing things like this for years.
Also, it’s hard to say you can’t copyright dance moves, when he legally owns the copyright to it?
@PtM So first, reform copyright to allow more fair use and shorten the duration, 95 years is too long, then you allow short dances with no music to be fully copyrighted.
@icomma It's still body movements. Not freaking "choreography". He didn't even mention that anyway. He's still only doing it for the money Epic made for Ukraine. Nothing more.
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