A growing cluster of actors, musicians and viral internet stars have Fortnite in their crosshairs. The smash hit third-person shooter is free to play but generates mountains of revenue through in-game microtransactions. Those purchased lure avid Fortnite players to spend real life cash on virtual c…
A growing cluster of actors, musicians and viral internet stars have Fortnite in their crosshairs. The smash hit third-person shooter is free to play but generates mountains of revenue through in-game microtransactions. Those purchased lure avid Fortnite players to spend real life cash on virtual cosmetic items, like special character skins (today: a winter skiing set!) and, most importantly, dance moves.
Now, Fortnite creator Epic Games faces two new lawsuits over dance moves: one from actor Alfonso Ribeiro who played Carlton on 90’s TV hit Fresh Prince of Bel Air and another from the family of Russell Horning, better known as “Backpack Kid,” who created a viral dance called “the Floss.” Horning’s lawsuit also names 2K Sports, maker of NBA 2K, for that game’s depiction of his dance. Earlier in December, rapper 2 Milly filed a lawsuit against Fortnite maker Epic over the game’s depiction of his dance move, the Milly Rock, which the game calls “Swipe it.”
Ribeiro’s lawyer provided TechCrunch with the following statement:
Fortnite’s in-game dance moves are ubiquitous, both in-game and out — and that’s part of the problem. The game lifted its most popular dance moves from various online viral moments across the internet, TV, movies and music. In most cases the in-game dances are so well loved because they copy their source material so precisely. While the game lifts these dances move for move, making them widely recognizable, it doesn’t refer to the source material directly and renames the dances with generic nicknames. In Fortnite, the “Tidy” dance is Snoop Dogg’s “Drop it Like its Hot” dance, “Jubilation” is Elaine’s dance from Seinfeld, “Pure Salt” (not really a dance, some of these are just emotes) is from the Salt Bae meme, Psy’s Gangnam Style dance and so on.
