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Fortnite stealing dance moves?


mmmark
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For the last time, you cannot own a dance or emote. Even if you invent it. It's not yours. A soon as it's performed it's public domain. You can charge people money to see me do it first hand but aside from that it's done. Anyone can copy, augment or alter it into how they want. Unless these fuckers go into the booth covered in motion trackers so they're physically being mapped they're owed fuck all.

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6 minutes ago, DifferentClass said:

Sly, you could apply that argument to music in general.  Just because copyright law doesn't consider dance choreography the same way doesn't mean it shouldn't be, especially since its so marketable with today's technology. 

 

That depends.

 

For a start some has sat down and written it. They've actually composed it, made sure everything follows on, written lyrics and done the same. It's been performed over and over by a set of people before being recorded, mixed and being pressed and then been copyrighted by the record label, artist and  all the other trimmings that go with it. It's been made into a product. Ergo, you cannot copy or replicate any part of it, especially for monetary gain.

 

If it's a ditty that was just flung out then that would be fine, a spontaneous bit of music could be replicated without having to ask for a credit, since it was done in the spur of a moment. Nobody could step in and get legal involved and because of that you're free to do what you want with stuff like this. Even if it was a big artist it could be done, unless it was recorded with the intent of being published, at which point it would follow the same laws as I mentioned above.

 

Dancing (and emoting) is a spontaneous act. I know that there's certain moves and if you look at the Turk dance he chains several parts together from various places. So what happens there? Does someone get a cut of parts of the dance? Where's the credit for the OG's that created each individual move? Because it's alright us going "Well, Turk should be getting the money here, they ripped him off", but in truth Turk ripped several people off. That's why it's public domain, so people can just chain shit that went before and make something new, like how I said earlier about Sherlock Holmes, they take a thing and they remix it and make it something else completely. Everything borrows from everything, going right back before any of us existed. It's always been the way. People have always had stuff they've started off that's been sold by someone else.

 

The dancing or emoting for these people isn't the product. If it was 2Milly would be a dancer that rapped instead of a rapper that danced. He has his product, it's the music. Not the dance. The dance was never intended to be a product and 2Milly is pissed off because Epic saw it, decided to put a group of animators on the job and sell it.

 

If one of us we on the cusp of being famous and then a dance, catchphrase or anything like that got propelled into the mainstream that were performed by us, we'd be understandably pissed off, but we don't own those things. We just happened to have performed them and they caught on. We can claim we started it, but we cannot claim ownership.

 

In some degree I do think that dance choreography is getting dicked here. But I also think that 2Milly coming in and saying that he's owed money is a big ask since what he's doing isn't anywhere near the level of what could be classed as choreography. Same with the Snoop Dogg one. Same with the Carlton dance. They're throw away shimmies that caught on and people like. When they enter popular culture like that then it's bound to happen that some of them are going to really take root and they're going to be sold or incorporated into products that are to be sold.

 

If legal does get involved and royalties do have to start being paid, then either way goodbye to them and have none descript dances and emotes, or get ready to pay out the nose because suddenly everything has a licences attached to it.

 

I suspect if it did get that far the companies defending themselves against the dancers could plead fair use  or parody since they're not using the whole routine. Take the Beyonce dance for example in WoW. They use a small part of what is a 3 minute dance. Arguably it'd be the most recognisable steps, but they'd still only using a tiny portion.

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Okay, I'm just gonna leave it at this since I'm still not convinced by any of the push back.

 

With regards to the Turk dance I don't think he should be getting financial gain for his dance, but then he's not even asking for any.  But I do think he should at least be credited just out of good faith.

 

But when it comes to musicians and performers (like 2Milly in this case) I just see the choreography as part of the performance package and not a separate entity.  I do believe the contribution of the form is getting horribly overlooked and its addition undervalued.  And seeing how it can be monetised in the way it is proves that it does have value.  And the fact money can be made this way makes me not care that video game companies have to pay a licence as it should just be part of the cost to produce this kind of content, especially if it is being sold as a standalone emote.  And deals could be made; maybe an artist would like to have their moves used as an emote for whatever reason, either because they are a fan of the game or it could be a business move.  Point is, like I said earlier, it should be up to the artist.  But Epic are trying to circumvent that and take all they can get.

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I do find it highly surprising, Sly, that you of all people are taking the developer’s side that it’s ok for them to sell DLC of someone else’s work.

 

A unique dance is the same as a unique melody. Both are constructed from previously existing components (body movements and musical notes) but put together in a new way and can be traced back to their creator.

 

Is the crux of the disagreement here that both of you don’t think dances and choreography are worth anything? 

 

The other side of this is what happens when someone else puts that Milly Rock dance in a game and then Epic objects as they sold it first and therefore own it?

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Fair enough.

 

I just think that this will end up with stuff like dance moves being subject to copyright. At some point there will be a big push back by the creators when they see how much money someone else is making out of their work.

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4 hours ago, Hendo said:

I do find it highly surprising, Sly, that you of all people are taking the developer’s side that it’s ok for them to sell DLC of someone else’s work.

 

 

It's OK, it's a free to play game, the animators probably spent more time wireframing the dance than the guy that spent a whole 30 seconds decided to flail his arms about like a buffoon. I don't see anyone getting pissy that Pocket Jen created the Sombra dance for Overwatch or any of the other dances there, which can also be paid for in a round about way. Same with a lot of dances in Overwatch as well. You think Bliz paid Travolta for the Pulp Fiction Dance? Did they fuck. Same goes for all the other dances going back as far as people can remember. You were keen to overlook that back then, you're just looking to attack Epic here.

 

I couldn't give a fuck about Fortnite but it's the thing to hate now since it's so big. Wah wah, they stole this guys dance. It's been happening for the best part of a decade. Where was the complaining before that?

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Just now, Hendo said:

I just think that this will end up with stuff like dance moves being subject to copyright. At some point there will be a big push back by the creators when they see how much money someone else is making out of their work.

 

I think that's fair. That's the whole point of this. Although I think you'd have a hard time trademarking something unless it was very very specific. Because like I said, you can't just trademark a movement because one person uses it all the time. Doing something all the time doesn't mean you own it, because if that was a case I could charge you all for each time you say cunt.

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Cunt isn’t a unique word though. 

I’m sure CBS could (and maybe have) copyrighted the word “bazinga” to stop people from making money out of their shitty comedy show.

 

Again, we’re not talking random “arm flailing”, these are specially constructed moves that someone has spent time working on and someone else is making cash out of.

I’ve got no problem with Epic or Fortnite and I admit I’m ignorant to any of the Overwatch moves they stole.

 

If someone sampled you from a podcast or video and made a ton of money out of it, I’m sure you would see your arse, even if it was something said off the cuff.

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this thread reads like the comments section of the daily mail.

 

Do any of you remember when they sold horse armour DLC and people lost their shit? "why would people pay money for that? it's not even a real thing.. etc."

You always have the option *NOT* to buy...

If I became internet famous for doing a dance, and that was my "brand" and arguable in a court of law, that someone was profiting from copying or profiting from that, then there are laws in place to get that shit stamped out.

 

People pick the weirdest hills to die on...

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3 hours ago, RoboticMonk3y said:

this thread reads like the comments section of the daily mail.

 

Do any of you remember when they sold horse armour DLC and people lost their shit? "why would people pay money for that? it's not even a real thing.. etc."

You always have the option *NOT* to buy...

If I became internet famous for doing a dance, and that was my "brand" and arguable in a court of law, that someone was profiting from copying or profiting from that, then there are laws in place to get that shit stamped out.

 

People pick the weirdest hills to die on...

 

So you come in, miss the points being made, bring up horse armour for some reason and act all condescending. 

 

And we're the Daily Mail types? 

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