Scrubs‘ Donald Faison confirms that Fortnite’s Default dance emote is indeed Turk’s Poison dance.
Scrubs’ Donald Faison confirms that Fortnite’s Default dance emote is indeed Turk’s Poison dance.
Epic Games is getting more heat from disgruntled celebrities whose sweet moves have been co-opted by the studio and sold off to players in Fortnite with no kickback to the creators.
During a Scrubs’ cast reunion at the Vulture Festival in L. A., Donald Faison – who played Turk on the show – was asked to perform the charater’s Poison dance just before the audience Q&A kicked off.
“No,” he said, as his fellow cast mates attempted to cajole him into letting loose. “If you want to see it, you can play Fortnite, because they jacked that shit.”
Series creator Bill Lawrence followed up with an explanation of sorts that boiled down to someone from Epic contacting the show, and Lawrence giving the okay.
“Real trivia. Fortnite had to enquire [about] the legality of it, and it’s fine because it’s just a character dancing.”
Faison interjected, saying, “I didn’t get no money… I know, that’s what you’re all thinking right? Somebody got paid. No. No, I did not. Somebody stole that shit and it’s not mine no more.”
“I made the decision,” replied Lawrence. “I knew that Donald would be cool with me getting the money for that,” he joked. Faison revealed that the reason he was so incensed is that he made up the dance on the spot after showing up late to the set. You can check out the exchange below at the 42.40 mark.
Epic Games has taken a number of other creators’ dances for their emotes with rapper 2 Milly recently stating that he was looking to pursue legal action against the devs for the use of his Milly Rock.
Earlier this year, Chance the Rapper tweeted out his thoughts on the subject, criticising Epic for making money off other people’s content.
BlocBoy JB wasn’t too impressed after his dance appeared in the game either.
Epic has yet to release a statement on the issue, but there are currently no copyright laws protecting choreography in the US, so while what they’re doing is entirely legal, it isn’t winning them any points with the community.
