Come along, because this story mixes dancing, the internet and a courtroom: in December 2018, Anita Redd, mother of Russell Horning, the 16-year-old known as Backpack Kid, filed a lawsuit against Epic Games on her son’s behalf. The reason was the Floss, the dance he popularized, which became one of the most famous emotes in Fortnite.
Horning became famous dancing the Floss alongside Katy Perry on Saturday Night Live in 2017. Epic put the dance in the game as a Season 2 battle pass emote in December 2017. According to the lawsuit, this was done without permission and without payment. One passage of the complaint said Epic used “The Dance, and other dances, to create the false impression that Epic started these dances and trends”.
He was not alone. Before him, rapper 2 Milly and actor Alfonso Ribeiro, Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, had already sued Epic over the Swipe It and Fresh emotes. Coincidence? Hardly: all three were represented by the same law firm, Pierce Bainbridge Beck Price & Hecht. Ribeiro and Horning also sued Take-Two Interactive, owner of the NBA 2K series, over use of the dances.
The big question was whether a dance can be protected by copyright in the United States, and who can prove they created a dance move that went viral.
What came next
In March 2019, the lawsuits by Ribeiro, 2 Milly and Backpack Kid were withdrawn. A US Supreme Court decision, unrelated to Fortnite, ruled that copyright infringement suits can only begin after the Copyright Office accepts or refuses the work’s registration. In Ribeiro’s case, the registration of the Carlton dance was refused by the office.
Source: Eurogamer and Fortune.
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