​

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.

Source

 

[duwen]

And what is the likelihood that anyone has evidence of that? I would think in this day and age if the evidence existed it would have been presented, as far as I can tell most news outlets including NBC are crediting Al as the creator of the dance, It's hard to imagine that they are all just wrong, and doing bad reporting, maybe 1 or even two, but all of them? Everyone knows that he created it, and where it was inspired from, and Epic has blatantly stole his creation, and are selling it at $8 a pop.

Oh, so he created the 3d model and animated it? - in that case, you're right and he deserves a share.

...I think you're underestimating how easy it might be to find evidence of someone else doing that dance - like Courtney Cox in the promo video for Bruce Springsteens Dancing in The Dark... is it identical, no. Is Ribeiro's, interpretation transformative enough to be totally original, no.

 

[AmandaRose]

Actually - just read an article in The Sun newspaper..
Apparently Alfonso "has been caught admitting he stole it in the first place"

I said that already several posts back lol. I am now going to sue you for any likes your post that you copied from me gets.

 

[TheRealNGB]

Oh, so he created the 3d model and animated it? - in that case, you're right and he deserves a share.

...I think you're underestimating how easy it might be to find evidence of someone else doing that dance - like Courtney Cox in the promo video for Bruce Springsteens Dancing in The Dark... is it identical, no. Is Ribeiro's, interpretation transformative enough to be totally original, no.

Whether it is tranformative enough to be considered an original creative piece is up to a court to decide, I believe so in that it uses a combination of different movements (even if inspired by others) with its own name, and creative likeness, again if Cox and Murphy's copyrights are being potentially violated that would be on them to persue, and only for a court to decide, but at the very least they do have the right to use those parts of the dance that have already been admitted to being inspirations to his own freely.

I can understand your opinion on the ridiculousness of copyrighting body movements, what I don't agree with though is that Epic is not blatantly stealing others creative content and selling it for profit.

 

[CannonFoddr]

I said that already several posts back lol. I am now going to sue you for any likes your post that you copied from me gets.

Ah, but I'm countersuing on the basis that I never claimed my post was the first & the fact that mine is not a copy of yours ;P

 

[duwen]

On February 14th, 2019, Saskia Florence, a supervisory registration specialist in the U.S. Copyright Office Performing Arts Division wrote to Riberio's attorney, informing him that they would not be registering the dance for copyright, calling the "Carlton" a "simple dance routine" and not a "choreographic work."

They write, "The dancer sways their hips as they step from side to side while swinging their arms in an exaggerated manner. In the second dance step, the dancer takes two steps to each side while opening and closing their legs and their arms in unison. In the final step, the dancer's feet are still and they lower one hand from above their head to the middle of their chest while fluttering their fingers. The combination of these three dance steps is a simple routine that is not registrable as a choreographic work."

 

[Deleted User]

which is more trendy? playing fortnite or suing fortnite?

 

[Xzi]

which is more trendy? playing fortnite or suing fortnite?

The former for children, the latter for adults.