More likely the game is making bank, and people always want a piece of the pie if they think they can get a significant sum of money. If someone isn't making much money, there isn't much reason to sue since they wouldn't get much. Only reason sue is if it was causing damage to the plaintiff. Otherwise, a simple boiler plate cease and desist is more than enough.

Well, why would you want to waste money suing an entity that doesn't have money? Or is the idea here that it's wrong for him to want to make money off his dance but not Epic? Did they really call it The Carlton Dance? That would help his case.

You don't necessarily have to sue if you feel you are entitled to restitution. Plus, most lawsuits of this nature never go to court anyhow. They're usually settled out of court, and lawyer fees paid by the defendant. It's how patent trolls work, because law suits are messy and expensive, and often hard to win in these cases. They almost never take it to court unless it involves large sums of money and they know its a sure to win case. In this case, despite Fortnite raking in money hand over fist, it's really hard to equate just how much of that is due to the copyright holder. A lot of that will depend on how it was sold, as in directly through a MT single purchase, or part of a larger purchase, whether it was just there in the game with no purchase required, and then the validity of the latter on if it were actually important to the sales. At that point, reasonable licensing fees would have to be assessed, which would be hard for a dance.

I'm not making a judgement either way on if he has a valid claim....although I know I'm getting off topic from the comment I made and you responded to. I question if the dance is his to have a copyright on. NBC produced fresh prince of Bel Air. They own every intellectual property of the show....including the theme song, which was performed by Will Smith. More importantly, they own the character of Carlton, as the actor was contracted to play the character in question. It's possible Will Smith even owns such things, as he was the producer of the show for some time, but that would depend on the deal he had with NBC.

You can think of it more like this.

Say an actor has a well known piece of dialogue performance.

For example, "You talkin' to me?", from Taxi Driver, performed by Robert DeNiro. Probably one of the most well known and recognized scenes of all time. Also one of the most repeated. It was completely improvised by DeNiro. He "wrote"(or created) the lines(like the actor created this dance), but he doesn't actually own the copyright or the performance.

The lines are copyrighted, because it was released that way. Columbia Pictures does. DeNiro can't sue anyone, even if the work is used in a way that infringes copyright....say a movie is made without permission, or a printing of the script. That's usually how these things go, and the only exception is when it's explicitly stated otherwise in contract....which would be unlikely in this case, since when he first performed the dance, the show was still pretty new, and I doubt he would have stipulated such a thing for a line that said something like, "Do a white person dance".

I don't know what Epic calls the dance in game. The highly satirical dance done by the actor was based on another dance, performed by Courtney Cox, although with embellishment. Even if it's called the Carlton Dance though, that doesn't mean much in terms of copyright law, as it was never officially branded as such. At best, it would be used to show that was the inspiration, but if it actually infringes is a whole other matter.

The courts will have to decide the law on this matter, since the dance itself isn't really that long of a routine, and mostly consists of a few moves repeated over and over, with a bit of flair at the end, which I don't believe was put in the Fortnite version.

Thank you for that bit of education. I knew copyright applies only to specific works, not concepts; but had no idea how that would apply to a dance. It makes sense that they'd have to copy it substantially from a published work in order to infringe.

Technically, just the performance done publicly, while recorded so it can be reviewed, is enough to gain copyright. In this case, the actor performed it on tape. Apparently on dancing with the stars for the version used in Fortnite.

but seeing the dance in question now, it is really just two moves. Its not actually choreographed, and I have no clue how many dance moves constitutes a routine. I also am unsure if something done randomly, as this seems to be, is considered a routine that is copyrightable. I'd ask my wife, but she doesn't care enough to research it.:( Just told me that the courts would decide if there was enough there to consider it infringement.

Apparently he's seeking to copyright the dance now. According to my wife, who was kind enough to say this, He shouldn't have to, as it was performed on a show already. Also, to date, he hasn't marketed it as part of a brand...which would be himself. It's called the "carlton" dance, and the character itself is the property of NBC and Will Smith, she assumes anyhow. So, any performance is their property, even if changed a bit later on like on Dancing with the Stars, since the name is attached to it. The fact that he performed it on queue to that name indicates that he recognizes the branding of a property of another license holder, thus, not giving him any legal claim of ownership.

So, while the dance itself may be copyrightable, he may not actually have the legal claim to say he is the rightful copyright holder. Again, something for the powers that be to determine, and then for the courts to decide if Epic infringed.

Interesting case though, as I feel this is probably a better "rip-off" than the other rappers who want to make a claim. I respect at least he's going through legal channels instead of just saying sh*t on social media to try it in the court of public opinion first....which is usually a bad thing to do if you want to sue someone.

To bad its not originally his dance. So where's the rebuttal in that one?!?

Never claimed he created it. Never said he had any right to it. I don't know who created it. Just commenting on the issue.