Fortnite: Epic Games is sued by basketball players for dancing - Ultimate Guide

A new controversy surrounds Epic Games, creator of the famous game of Battle Royale, Fortnite, and is that again the company has been sued for adding to the game emotes of dances that do not supposedly meet the copyright.

 

Jared Nickens and Jaylen Brantley are two former men's basketball players from the University of Maryland, who filed a federal lawsuit in Maryland on Monday, accusing the creators of the game of profiting from the dance they claim they invented and made popular through published videos. in social networks, in addition to thanks to that dance were invited to "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2016.

Nickens and Brantley refer to the "Running Man" dance that is available at Fortnite and many players already own after buying this emote. The plaintiffs allege that the dance shown in the game is identical to the one they created and they demand that Epic has no right to copy it without first asking permission or offering some compensation for its use. They are even looking for more than $ 5 million in damages.

 

In addition, they claim that the company is unfairly exploiting African-American talent, since most of their dances are representative of their culture.

This type of demands can already be considered common for the creator of Fortnite, since there are already at least five demands linked to the copyright of dances, among the artists that sue Epic are: the rapper 2 Milly and Alfonso Ribeiro, protagonist of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air".

 

Regarding the lawsuit that Ribeiro filed, the lawyers of Epic Games gave as an argument: "no one can possess a dance step or a simple dance routine", in response to Ribeiro's claiming to have the copyright on the dance " Carlton "that his character made during the comedy of 1990. So, The United States Copyright Office denied that right to Ribeiro, because Epic's lawyers said that:

"The copyright law is clear that no one can possess individual dance steps or simple dance routines composed of multiple steps, as they are building blocks of free expression, which are not protected by copyright."

 

Not only must this strong argument be taken into account by the US company to see the possible outcome of the new lawsuit, since it must be added that Nickens and Brantley do not have a good base with regard to owning the dance, since that, the challenge of "Running Man" was initiated by two young high school students named Kevin Vincent and Jerry Hall. And the former male basketball players of the University of Maryland at the time saw a video of those students and decided to make their own version, which went viral quickly on social networks.