Lawsuit against Fortnite developer dismissed by US judge

A lawsuit brought against Epic Games over the use of a dance by a professional choreographer has been thrown out by a US judge.

The lawsuit filed against Epic Games over its use of the “It’s Complicated” dance has been dismissed by a US judge, who states that the dances do not share enough elements to infringe copyright.

Kyle Hanagami is a professional dance choreographer who has worked with stars such as Britney Spears and BlackPink.

He filed a suit against Epic Games over the use of a specific emote, titled ‘It’s Complicated’, alleging that the dance used movements from a copyrighted routine used for the song “How Long” from Charlie Puth, PCGamesN reported.

An ‘emote’ is an action triggered by the player to make their avatar do a dance or action, often used after the player has defeated another or won the game.

The original lawsuit filed in April said that Epic Games “did not credit Hanagami nor seek his consent to use, display, reproduce, sell or create derivative work based on the Registered Choreography.”

Hanagami’s lawyer uploaded a video to YouTube showing the dance being used, comparing and even overlaying the two on top of each other to show that the dances were indeed similar. For US district judge Stephen Wilson, however, it wasn’t enough.

On August 24, he dismissed the case, claiming that the two works “do not share enough creative elements” to constitute copyright infringement.

Epic Games has had run-ins with creatives before, especially when it comes to dance choreography.

Chance the Rapper and Alfonso Ribeiro (the actor that played Carlton on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) are some of the famous personalities that have sued Epic Games over the inclusion of their dances into Fortnite.

Fortnite is an arena shooter, the most popular in the world. The game allows players to purchase costumes and dances to use during gameplay, including wrestling superstar John Cena and Indiana Jones.

While some costumes (called skins) and dances are contentious in their legality, many are sanctioned and even approved — we’ve got a list of the top 10 celebrity skins in Fortnite for you to take a look at.

Written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF