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Epic Games has urged a judge to file a lawsuit filed by rapper Terrence "2 Milly" Ferguson, accusing him of copying his "Milly Rock" dance steps in a Fortnite emote player. Epic responded to Ferguson's complaint with a long list of legal defenses – including the claim that his dance emote, called "Swipe It", did not even use the same motions.
In his defense, Epic's lawyers wrote that Ferguson's dance – as it appears from the video clip below – was too simple to be protected by copyright. "No one can have a dance step," the motion reads, because "individual dance steps and simple dance routines are not protected by copyright, but rather constitute building blocks. freedom of expression ". He also claimed that the context is fundamentally different: Ferguson used the "Milly Rock" movements "while listening to music with his friends and dancing to music, Swipe It's a part in Fortnite is to allow players to express themselves on the battlefield. "
Even beyond these claims, Epic says that "Milly Rock" dance and Swipe It are only tangentially related. His defense exhaustively describes the movements involved in each dance, based on a video submitted to trial. (Unfortunately, there is no accompanying scheme.) Here is his description of 2 Milly's move:
The dance step consists of a lateral step on the right while swinging the left arm horizontally on the chest, on the right, then reversing the same movement on the other side, namely a lateral step on the left while swaying the right arm horizontally the chest to the left.
And here's how it describes "Swipe It":
On the contrary, Swipe It consists of (1) variable arm movements, sometimes using a straight and horizontal bow on the chest, and other times starting under the hips and then moving diagonally across the body up to the waist. in the shoulder while pivoting on the balls and heels of the feet, (2) a winding of the right arm before hitting, and (3) a rolling of the hands and forearms between shots.
Moreover, while in the dance step, the torso, the shoulders and the head are turned forward while the ribs move from one side to the other of the movements of the arms; in Swipe It, the torso, shoulders and head turn to the side with the movement of the arm and the ribs remain in place.
The dance of 2 Milly, he notes, is also performed at a "much faster" tempo.
These are actually important details, as Ferguson's complaint claims that Epic badyzes and copies the image-by-image dance movements, giving "identical" emotes to the original in all respects. But the movements are always similar, and many people have made the connection between Fortnite emote and 2 Milly's step.
The most interesting question is when (and if) you can legally own a short dance like "Milly Rock". The dance can only be protected by copyright if it reaches the level of "choreography" and there is little case law video game gestures. The Ferguson lawsuit is one of the few complaints filed against Epic for Fortnite emotes – each situation is slightly different, and all represent difficult battles for the dancers involved.
There are good reasons not to give strict legal protection to short dance sequences – copyright may hinder new creative adaptations of old works. But like waypoint recently argued that copying artists like Ferguson (especially without credit) could still be unethical even if it 's legal.
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