Fortnite dance moves have been hit by another lawsuit

A YouTuber and choreographer is the newest content creator Sue Epic Games above Fourteen daysUsing a dance move. This time, Kyle Hanagami says he copyrighted the dance in question, which he says was copied from It’s complicated emote Introduced August 2020.

Hanagami in 2017 choreographed a dance to Charlie Puth’s “How Long” and released it in a video that has since been viewed 35.7 million times. Hanagami’s complaint, filed Tuesday in federal court for the Central District of California, alleges that Epic stole his dance’s “hook” and used it at the beginning of the “It’s Complicated” emote without Hanagami’s consent.

The lawsuit is hardly the first brought against Epic over its use of dances Fourteen days, but it’s the first after four years of relative calm. After a series of lawsuits in 2018, a Supreme Court decision prompted the law firm Pierce Brainridge to withdraw several cases it represented. But a big difference between these cases and Hanagami’s complaint is that Hanagami actually has copyright on the dance in question.

To illustrate the point, Hanagami’s attorneys created a side-by-side video

show the dance moves they say Provided has copied. The movements not only appear to be identical, Fourteen daysis the unofficial wiki on Fandom.com says the dance is based in part on Hanagami’s choreography. However, the emote continues with dance moves not resembling or developed by Hanagami. The emote also doesn’t include the song that Hanagami originally choreographed the dance for.

Owning a copyright in dance moves is only part of the litigation. Dance copyrights are notoriously complicated, leaving wide areas for creative expression that are still fair game. Legal and artistic concepts such as creative use and supplementation of the choreography also play an important role. In general, it must be noted that a dance work that infringes a copyright copy most of the original work and not just a few moves or a section of it.

Hanagami’s lawsuit seeks a court order to prevent him from doing so Fourteen days resulting from use of the “It’s Complicated” dance step, unspecified statutory and compensatory damages, and attorneys’ fees.