The Fresh Prince's Alfonso Ribeiro sues Epic over Fortnite's 'Fresh' emote - Sensationalist Headlines

This is how car brands work in video games, why not other stuff? I'm sure if Forza made another game but decided to not pay the licensing fee to use all the car brands, they'd be looking at some pretty huge lawsuits.

Is the dance copyrighted? If not, tough fucking luck for NBC/Universal or this guy. If they were copyrighted, then it'd be a different story as Epic would be in violation of that copyright. Just because the dance can be protected doesn't mean the would-be owners are automatically owners. This is kind of cut-and-dried in that case tbh.

i thought the carlton dance was stolen from eddie murphy?

Another thing is, even if it is copyrighted, isn't that only in regards to the entire dance? Like for the example of Turk's dance thing, its just a few seconds of a relatively longer bit.

I suppose.. that moving forward, homage taunts that are sold in stores should start crediting the original dance? I think celebs are only just starting to catch wind of video games copying dance moves. If there's potential money to be made by suing, then more of those lawsuits will be coming in.

It's possible, but then that also raises an issue of brand association. It's all muddled and shitty, really.

You're aware you need licencing you use real life gun models in your game right? Fortnite seems to be cashing in on the iconography and emotions tied to particular shows and movies without ever directly taking their property... because nobody copyrights dances. Not sure how I feel about that, it's pretty clever tbh but also kinda low-key scummy.

Interestingly, they're not asking for royalties straight up, they're asking for credit first and foremost with compensation always being phrased second behind an "or". Something Epic's pretty much completely forsaken, and they and the internet have turned them into "the Fortnite dances". It's a cheap ass method of going for a lawsuit, but they're acknowledging the widespread problem rather than just solely their own. It's probably why games like TF2 and Doom 2016 can go under the radar alongside them just simply not being as big as Fortnite, because everyone knows it's the Carlton there but Epic's own community and massive appeal to the younger audiences resulted in this mess.

Can it really be said they're cashing in on the in-place emotions with a dance when the target audience at large doesn't know that one small piece of the dance existed until then? Like, how many people honestly saw the default dance and said "OH SHIT TUUURK?" I could see the argument for a few of them, like drop it like it's hot, but like the milly rock one? The biggest clue-in is the bgm, the dance looks pretty darn different from what anyone does through the video and I'd hazard that the fortnite and Milly Rock fan venn diagram is pretty un-intersectional.

Devil's Advocate: If I spend months choreographing and perfecting an original dance move, re-performed it 2 years later and the kids call it "Fortnite dance", you bet my ass I'll be somewhat agitated.

That argument stands with 13 year old kids, but maybe not the billion other people that play Fortnite. Couple that with the fact that these 13 year olds are inspired by content creators in their mid 20s who are definitely going to identify with dances from Fresh Prince and Scrubs specifically because they're from Fresh Prince and Scrubs. So Twitch dude likes a dance because it's from x show and kids like a dance because Twitch dude likes it. They definitely know they're using other people's identities and to some extent playing into what those identities give them.

sshhh lets quietly push the tf2 one under the rug because its that kids game i dont "get"

i mean, jet li famously turned down the matrix because he didn't want any of his fighting moves to be digitized. which is completely fair and totally his choice that should be respected. do you not think alfonso is entitled to have a say about how his own "body movements" are used? it was a signature dance. he likely made it up himself. i think they least they could have done is ask for permission to use it.

https://twitter.com/TMZ/status/1075034979569098752 He's suing 2K as well, and is claiming he's in the process of copyrighting it.

Lots of things are technically legal and still ethically wrong. All I would want in this case is that they reach out to originators of the dances and ask permission first, and it seems like in every case they chose to skip that step because they knew that implementing popular dance moves would bring them more money through ingame purchases. Adhering to "is it technically legal? if so, then fuck the victims" can be a pretty heartless way to approach things like this, my man.

Should sue HiRez as well because they use it for Nike's dance in Smite.

And Activision since they made a skeleton do in in the Spyro remaster.

And Playground Games/Turn10 for putting it in Forza.

Hold up, how much money do you think Epic has probably made through the sale of that emote in particular - think for a second just how much money they've made from his dance that he popularized. "Honor" doesn't put food on the table. Alfonso seems to first and foremost be asking for them to stop selling it, and then whatever else after that. "The lawsuit seeks a restraining order that will prevent Epic from selling or otherwise using the "Fresh" emote in Fortnite, damages, legal fees, and "such other and further relief as the Court may deem proper." Epic is making a killing off of selling a dance that is immediately recognizable as being "The Carlton" and the actual man himself isn't making a dime - or being credited.

They're not even using the dance's name.

he didn't even create that dance afaik, he was just the first to perform it on national television

TF2 is good, you have a problem with that?

Yea that one is even worse because the floss isn't the invention of that kid. It like pre-dates 2000 iirc, you find videos of it way before that kid was probably born. Just seems that there are a few lawyers that got the fun idea to try and sue Epic over this. I'm still not even sure Epic would just put those dances in without doing their homework of the legal side. They asked for permission for the dance from Scrubs, which the producer gave the okay without any royalties.

I wouldn't be surprised if ribiero owns the dance, Its kinda his iconic thing

smh nobody talking about them ripping off the groovitron from ratchet & clank https://youtu.be/ACorWTwTxN4

That's actually a legal problem for him. Selectively choosing targets to sue for copyright claims is a great way to invalidate your copyright claim. Its why, as insufferable as it is, Nintendo and Disney's legal teams are the way they are.

This is why it's important to copyright things that mean something to you like this. It's a shitty system, but that's how it works. With regards to the lawsuit, unless there's a copyright owner, Epic can get out of this; What is "morally right or wrong" has nothing to do with this strictly legal matter, guys. If Ribiero was expecting to "put food on the table", he should have taken measures to make that happen. I don't do work for someone without a contract, because I expect to get paid for my time. Ribiero may/may not have sought copyright status for this, which would have been the right thing to do if he wanted to profit off the use of the dance elsewhere. Had that not happened (which I'm betting is the case), the dance was up for grabs to use publicly and for a profit. That's just how it works, and I'm not going to comment on if I think anyone was morally right or wrong in this case because it's not about that.

iirc he said in a interview that the dance at the time was mostly improv. Alfonso Ribeiro Explains Fresh Prince of Bel Air Carlton Dance |..

Would the Fortnite dance not fall under fair use parody law? There are plenty of shows that reference previous tv. There are plenty of big songs that sample older songs. How do you draw the line with a case like this?

Well, it is also possible that he doesn't know about Team Fortress 2. Fortnite is a much more popular game, by far.