Fortnite: Battle Royale is still facing criticism from artists who find their dances and moves in the game without permission. Now, the actor playing Turk from the sitcom Scrubs has also expressed his concerns.
Which dance are we talking about? Every Fortnite player knows the default dance that every player gets for free when they open an account in the game. But like many emotes in Fortnite, this move is also not an original creation of Epic Games.
Fortnite stole my dance!
Scrubs invented it: The “Fortnite dance” actually comes from the popular sitcom “Scrubs” from the early 2000s. In it, aspiring doctors navigate through the chaos of working in a hospital. One of the characters, the surgeon Turk, performs an improvised dance in one episode called the “Poison Dance”.
At a reunion of the Scrubs cast at the media event “Vulture Festival”, Turk actor Donald Faison was asked to demonstrate the dance live. However, he declined with the somewhat sarcastic words: “If you want to see the dance, play Fortnite, because they stole that shit!”
Epic asked for permission: A joking discussion followed about whether the actors should receive money for the dance. The producer explains in the talk that Epic specifically asked whether it was okay to use the dance.
Donald Faison, however, stood by his opinion and completely refused to perform the dance.
More rappers are upset
The issue with the “stolen” dances is far from resolved. Rather, once again, rappers have complained about Epic for incorporating their moves into Fortnite without permission.
Rapper 2 Milly wants to sue: Recently, rapper 2 Milly was upset because Fortnite used his dance “Milly Rock” without asking and without paying fees, calling it “Swipe It” in Fortnite as part of the Season 5 Battle Pass. He now intends to file a lawsuit to “protect what belongs to me”.
Everyone thinks this is a Fortnite dance: Besides the lack of profit-sharing, the affected artists argue that countless kids now only know their moves as “Fortnite dances”.
That the moves were originally created by someone else outside the game would therefore go unnoticed by millions of people.
What is the legal situation? It is still legally difficult to take action against the adoption of dances. There are no comprehensive legal requirements on how to protect such content and declare it as intellectual property.
Therefore, Epic is likely still in the right when they happily use the dances and moves of other artists. However, since the Fortnite developers make money from the dances, it would be fair if the original artists could somehow be compensated.
