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Fortnite stealing dance moves?


mmmark
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Lots of games reference stuff. Look at all the dances in WoW. Similar with Destiny, there's that Carlton dance too. It doesn't stop at dances either, when you look at the legal stuff Bethesda has with Notch over the Scrolls name, the people making Skyrim still snuck lots of references in towards Minecraft and stuff like that.

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I think there's a difference between a reference and just doing the thing.  Just because it was done in the past it doesn't mean it's OK.  

 

And in the case of Fortnite, Epic charges for some of these dances alone.  They're actually selling something created by someone else at that point. 

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I think he'll get a big fat fuck all. It reminds me of that time Paris Hilton tried to trademark "That's hot!". The concept of trademarking or copyrighting a real time movement or spoken word of the human body is silly. This isn't the same as protecting music or film, Epic will have looked into this and made sure they weren't opened to getting sued to fuck and back.

 

They cover in the video that people like Rhianna has covered it. Even other games have done it. If he did win it sets a precedence that all those other people have to pay. In other words the cultural impact that dance has, even if it is recreated in a game is spreading it. In short, if he wanted to lock it down it wouldn't be as huge as it is.

 

On the flip side, I now know who 2Milly is, at first I thought you had spelt Souija Boy's alter ego or whatever the fuck he calls himself wrong.. At I would have never known about him before this. Same with the other dance they showed. It's viral and because of that inclusion people will discover the music. 

 

If the game made fuck all money people wouldn't be talking about it. It's like the Polish guy that wrote Witcher. He sold it and then regretted it because he saw how much money the license made Projekt Red. Granted, he actually got money for that and a lot of these artists didn't, but if Fortnite had sank without a trace nobody would be talked about how many dances it supposedly ripped off.

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14 hours ago, Sly Reflex said:

I think he'll get a big fat fuck all. It reminds me of that time Paris Hilton tried to trademark "That's hot!". The concept of trademarking or copyrighting a real time movement or spoken word of the human body is silly. This isn't the same as protecting music or film, Epic will have looked into this and made sure they weren't opened to getting sued to fuck and back.

 

They cover in the video that people like Rhianna has covered it. Even other games have done it. If he did win it sets a precedence that all those other people have to pay. In other words the cultural impact that dance has, even if it is recreated in a game is spreading it. In short, if he wanted to lock it down it wouldn't be as huge as it is.

 

The precedent that it sets now, that dance moves can be taken unchallenged and no credit or payments given, isn't good either. 

 

14 hours ago, Sly Reflex said:

 

On the flip side, I now know who 2Milly is, at first I thought you had spelt Souija Boy's alter ego or whatever the fuck he calls himself wrong.. At I would have never known about him before this. Same with the other dance they showed. It's viral and because of that inclusion people will discover the music. 

 

If someone wants to gift their dance moves then it should be their choice, not Epic's (or whoever). 

 

14 hours ago, Sly Reflex said:

 

If the game made fuck all money people wouldn't be talking about it. It's like the Polish guy that wrote Witcher. He sold it and then regretted it because he saw how much money the license made Projekt Red. Granted, he actually got money for that and a lot of these artists didn't, but if Fortnite had sank without a trace nobody would be talked about how many dances it supposedly ripped off.

 

It's not the same as The Witcher author at all.  They made a deal.  No deal with the original artist is being made here. 

 

This stuff has been taken for granted fo too long and I don't think it's unfair to get these companies to pay up.  They make their customers do it. 

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Yep. What @Nag says. The dancers creators are shit out of luck. You can't do a move and then say "This is mine from now on and everyone that uses it must pay me" because that's fucking stupid. Yeah, they're ripping the dance off because the idea a dance can be IP is ridiculous.

 

For instance, do the people that invent gun safety get a payout? Those stances and firing methods you see had to be worked by someone. Anything that's based on anything where someone had to work it out will want paying. They're used in a lot of games. What about people using the phonetic alphabet? That was created by someone, should they get a payout each time something like "Tango down!" is shouted?

 

If you copyright every last thing culture would be fucked. It has no way to spread outside the copyright holders own reach. If you're a small artist, then that's bad, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. Copyright law is bad enough as it is, it causes more issues than its should do.

 

In fact copyright law is robbing culture of more stuff. You see when Sherlock Holmes went public domain, we got a few re-imagines of it that added to culture. Every year we're robbed of stuff that could be spun out into new ideas or be used for educational purposes but the holder squats on it like a dragon on a pile of gold and has their hand out for royalties.

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The difference is in this case is those ripping off these dances as DLC are selling them directly for money. 

 

It isn't just someone doing it on the street or in a club.  And I imagine even if copyright law got involved there will be room for transformative use. 

 

But what Epic are doing is wrong and should be held accountable. 

 

Whether people think dance choreography is an irrelevant creative endeavour doesn't matter.  It obviously contributes to culture, isn't something people just "make up on the spot one day", as proof shows money is to be made from it and it should be dished out accordingly. 

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The Moonwalk is arguably the precise example of why this is a problem. Jackson didn't invent it, a few people did it before him, but he did it at a time when music videos were taking off and so it became tied to him, anyone else doing it would be seen as an imitation even tough it wasn't his move

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And MJ did patent the lean from Smooth Criminal, or at least the mechanism to do it live, so others couldn't do it or a similar move using the mechanism. 

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106333912&t=1542825042503

 

So it's not unheard of.  And since we live in a time when virtual versions can be sold then similar patents may be worth making. 

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