Epic Games is facing an interesting new lawsuit filed by a professional choreographer. The choreographer claims that the company took a dance move of its own to use as a Fortnite expression.
Kyle Hanagami states that “It’s Complicated”, a phrase added to Fortnite in 2020, performed in his 2017 routine while on the support team of Charlie Puth’s pop song “How Long”, copyrighted dance moves were introduced without permission. It says transferred. As reported by NBC
, the lawsuit alleges that Epic “has not designated Hanagami as the rightful owner or obtained permission to use, display, reproduce, sell, or create derivative works based on the Stored Choreography.” The lawsuit says Epic unfairly exploited the choreographer’s work by selling the emote as an in-game purchase, and is seeking to stop the emote from appearing in Fortnite. Of course, there is also a claim for compensation.
Hanagami’s lawyers uploaded a video to YouTube comparing his dance moves side-by-side with the Fortnite expression. In this video you can see how close the expression is to the whole body routine.
Also, Hanagami is not a small-time choreographer. He has also previously worked with mega stars like Britney Spears, Justin Beiber, BlackPink and NSYNC.
In fact, this isn’t the first time Epic has been sued for allegedly plagiarizing other people’s dance moves. In 2018, Russell Horning, also known as The Backpack Kid, sued Epic for using the Floss dance in a statement. Actor Alfonso Ribeiro has filed another lawsuit against the publisher for a statement imitating the famous Carlton dance in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Finally, rapper 2 Milly took the issue to courtrooms for allegedly copying the Milly Rock movement. All three lawsuits were later dropped, with Epic suggesting that none of the plaintiffs had the copyright to the dances.
However, Hanagami’s situation is more complex. The professional choreographer says he holds the copyright of the movement. In previous cases, there was no copyright infringement.
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