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Since the advent of emotes in Fortnite, Epic Games has been adapting popular dance moves to be used as premium taunts in-game. This has also lead to the company finding themselves in legal hot water, with the rapper 2 Milly recently suing the company for selling his dance move as an emote. Now, another party has joined the lawsuit fray, with Alfonso Ribeiro also claiming that Epic Games has "stolen" his signature dance move, and is using it without asking for his permission. This move is called the Carlton dance, and in Fortnite, it's dubbed as the "Fresh" emote, seemingly a reference to Ribeiro starring on the TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. None of the prior allegations over these dances being in Fortnite have gone anywhere, yet, though it is not known if the "Carlton" is definitively copyrighted work to begin with, or if that copyright does not belong to Ribeiro, and instead lies with the company in charge of creating The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, where the dance originated.

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[xdarkx]

Alfonso just want a piece of that money. Nuff said. Better to leave the legal stuff to lawyers and parties who are actually involved with the case.

 

[The Catboy]

Nope, no need to file for anything. That's just lawyers wanting to make money off of you. There are no "real" legal advantages to registration. The only thing it helps with, is proving the date of the creation. (Which, if you never published anything, is practically impossible otherwise.)
For example with this specific case, the date of creation is clearly known as sometime before the first air date of the first episode that used the dance. This is a simple fact anyone can confirm, making registration a very expensive useless thing here.

I am not denying that but explaining that it's going to be harder for him to sue without copyright and getting that copyright isn't going to be easy considering the details I mentioned. Basically, he can sue, he can claim that he in some form "owns" this dance, but he can't call it copyright infringement without actual copyright to infringe upon.

I am however interested in seeing this play out, just like you, but for different reasons: I'd like to see the USA start to recognize copyright on dance moves. Excluding choreographers from copyright protection is pretty mean and inconsistent, since practically all other art forms are protected.
As far as the things you are wondering about... that's pretty clear-cut, actually: the dance is most likely owned by the studio that made the TV show (not the actor, and definitely not the TV channel!).
The actor created the work, but the studio hired the actor AND locked it into a tangible medium (video tape, most likely), clearly making them the "potential" rights holder (again, if there were rights to begin with, which there aren't in this case).
The TV channel only has a license to redistribute the final work (the TV show), by for example broadcasting it.
This all is unrelated to who came up with the "idea" of the dance, by the way. Ideas cannot be protected and thus cannot be stolen (patents get close to "protecting an idea", but those are for "solutions to technical problems", and a dance created for entertainment is hardly a solution to a technical problem).
Oh, and there's also trademarks, but those are for company/product logos. They only protect a certain symbolism in combination with a certain product type or business area. That's completely separate from copyright, and most logos are protected with both trademarks and copyrights (though one without the other, or even neither, are also quite possible).

Honestly copyrighting a dance is kind of a mess. As stated, it has to be original and proven to be their original idea for the actual process of filing copyright on it. Even though technically once an act's performed it has some form of copyright, but enforcing that copyright isn't an easy one.
But do you have proof that he created it? It could have been something that someone else created and he just performed it. That's what I am trying to get at, he needs to be able to prove that the dance was his creation and also prove that it doesn't already belong to the studio. Basically what I am saying is, he's making a claim that he owns this dance and he's trying to copyright the dance under his name but does he actually have the proof to show that it was his original dance and that it doesn't already belong to the network? These are going to be required when filing for copyright and that's something he needs to prove.

 

[|<roni&g]

On Alfonso’s side here, can’t stand battle royal games or any of that crap, looking forward to the games dying but incredibly worried about what comes next after the battle royal fad

 

[Tigran]

On Alfonso’s side here, can’t stand battle royal games or any of that crap, looking forward to the games dying but incredibly worried about what comes next after the battle royal fad

I don't give two shits about fortnight.. But damn, that's a fucking stupid thing to say.

I hope wipeout doesn't make anymore games. I mean, it's a horrible racing game and you're obviously insane for liking it. How dare you!

 

[Random11]

backpack kid didnt invent the move... he will lose and (@ 3:07)

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Nope, no need to file for anything. That's just lawyers wanting to make money off of you. There are no "real" legal advantages to registration. The only thing it helps with, is proving the date of the creation. (Which, if you never published anything, is practically impossible otherwise.)
Excluding choreographers from copyright protection is pretty mean and inconsistent, since practically all other art forms are protected.

Choreography can be copyrighted in the states. The law says specifically though that dance moves like the Charleston cannot be. Everyone who has sued has only one or two moves in their dance. It will be interesting if the girl that did the electro shuffle sues... or the guy from scrubs. Their dances were at least a hand full of moves put together and have a better argument for it being classed as copyrightable choreography

 

[gnmmarechal]

This is really dumb. I hope he loses.

 

[Deleted User]

this is so immature

 

[jt_1258]

Fortnite + Person with uninformed lawyer = dollar signs.

I'm sure Epic has filed this away with the hundreds of other baseless lawsuits.

meh, it's probably just more free publicity to them even though they could probably stop airing ads for the game and still rake in to much

 

[wiewiec]

Hmm, anobody remember when word edge in video games was copywrited? But copywrite shaking hands and bouncing ass?

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

We are also suing fortnite for stealing OUR dance the toejam and Earl shuffle pic.twitter.com/Id0i8sqZWq

— ToeJam & Earl (@toejamandearl) December 18, 2018

 

[xdarkx]

On Alfonso’s side here, can’t stand battle royal games or any of that crap, looking forward to the games dying but incredibly worried about what comes next after the battle royal fad

A new fad already started. It's call suing Epic Games for $$. Watch as more people jump the bandwagon to sue Epic Games.

 

[WD_GASTER2]

This headline seemed straight out of the Onion. Reality is stranger than fiction sometimes.

 

[AlphaBravo]

Love it. Im sure these moves have been copied and referenced many times before whether youtube,public events,social,etc and its never been an issue. But the minute these offended parties gets a whiff of money playing hands, its suddenly an issue. Either something is copyrighted or it isnt. And then theres the whole issue of copyright trolls who go over board with legal threats, stiffling creativity and opportunities for others.

What also vexes me is that all this also goes back to this awful situation where only a few enititled people should be making all of the money. Hope judge throws these lawsuits out the window.

Epic doesnt have to do shit but the considerate thing would be to offer these creatives a slice. Either that or make those emotes free.

 

[YuseiFD]

Earliest footage counts as copyright, it's like when you discover something and then someone copyrights it, u cna easily win by showing that yoi found it first, if u don't get the idea yet, he's mad they're making money out of this.

 

[eyeliner]

That situation is stupid.
People PAY for their puppets to dance a crappy thing that hardly looks like a dance?

 

[Lazyboss]

hopefuly she didnt inherit your low iq as well

You must have an IQ of an ant if you didn't get the joke

 

[Dominator211]

Never heard of this so clearly he isn't getting enough attention.
Way to miss the point.

thats because your from Canada

 

[BORTZ]

People suing for dance rights just makes you sound petty. You are just another soul going after the cash pinata that is Epic games.

 

[Mollycule]

This is dumber than Trump being elected president.

 

[TheRealNGB]

I don't see how it's even feasible to copyright a dance in the first place. What next? Copyright a workout?

Uh.. Technically you can copyright work outs, you don't think p90x or the countless other workout programs are copyrighted? I'm pretty sure you can copyright specific workout techniques as well, I believe a few body builders including Arny have there own copyrighted lifts.

I don't blame him, the attention alone is worth it in his line of business, and yeah Epic has made some great games, and share source code for old or failing ones, but they also are one of shadiest companies in the business when it comes to stealing content, so yeah fair play, they should have to answer for it in some form, and I'm sure they were fully aware of it going in, I don't expect much to come of it because Epic doesn't ever lose court cases, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't go unchecked.