By now, most of us should be familiar with the distinctive choreography of Beyonce’s Single Ladies: the hand waving, the immaculate flick of the wrist, and the gesturing towards the ring finger as Beyonce sings, “If you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it.” These moves, at least to some extent, were slated to be made available in Fortnite sometime , according to data miners who discovered these details in public documents from the ‘Epic Versus Apple’ lawsuit. This revelation is probably of no surprise; after all, Epic Games have been appropriating dance moves for use as Fortnite emotes for as long as the battle royale game has existed, fending off several lawsuits in tಌhe process. A bigger question, instead, would probably be why Epic Games have yet to release these emotes, given that the dance is one of pop culture’s biggest touchstones.
♐But if I were to venture a guess? Aside from how Epic Games may risk upsetting the world’s biggest pop star by digitising and making a tidy profit out of the dance sequence, the intricate choreography has actually been copy💮righted by JaQuel Knight, the choreographer behind the iconic moves—the first commercial choreographer to do so. At the same time, he has launched a music publishing company, Knight Choreography & Music Publishing, to also help other dancers copyright their dances as well. If Epic Games attempts to replicate these moves as emotes without paying royalty fees, it may find itself in a bit of a pinch.
Of course, issues over crediting dancers, artists and choreographers for their dance moves have been a growing conversation in recent years, and it’s a topic that Epic Games would definitely be intimately familiar with. After all, the developer had a laundry list of complainants accusing the Fortnite developer of using their moves without permission or credit: rapper 2 Milly, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star Alfonso Ribeiro, the Backpack Kid, Scrubs actor Donald Faison, and baritone saxophone player Leo Pellegrino. More recently, Epic Games has been sued once more by choreographer Kyle Hanagami for ripping off his choreographed moves and translating it to the “It’s Complicated” emote in Fortnite. Unlike the former artists, however, Hamꦓagami has also licensed this set of moves, which may result in a very different outcome for Epic Games (one point to note: the lawyer that Hanagami has engaged is David Hecht, the same attorney who has helped Knight secure his copyright for his Single Ladies dance, as well as the lawsuit for 2 Milly).
Previously, the past few lawsuits had been dismissed because of hazy legality issues that feel very much archaic; in short, the court has ruled against these lawsuits, alleging that the plaintiffs don’t have a case since these moves were not copyrighted in the first place, with Epic also arguing that these moves fall under the category of free speech. Then there are other issues at hand too, such as the difficulty in enforcing copyrights for choreographic works, particularly if these moves were deemed too short and simple to replicate, like the basic waltz step, breakdances, or celebratory dances. Had Backpack Kid registered for copyright for༺ The Floss dance move back then, for instance, it may not have been successful, since it’s not a particularly difficult manoeuvre to pull off, even though it’s extremely recognisable (plus, there’s also that Backpack Kid didn’t actually create this particular move; , which is way before he popularised it in a Katy Perry music video). In fact, these were the exact same defences that Epic has used to defend themselves against their lawsuits.
Thus there’s still a chance, however, that the latest legal battle against Epic Games still won’t gain much traction. Fortnite emotes are typically only a few seconds long, and since the “It’s Complicated” emote has only stolen a few seconds 🐽from Hanagami’s entire choreography (you can . It’s about a minute long, and it’s pretty fucking cool too). The simplicity of this move can be debated as well; I obviously cannot perform tha🙈t Fortnite emote in real life unless I have at least a couple of weeks of practice, but the same can’t be said for people who are infinitely more dexterous than me.
So what sort of dance moves can be copyrighted? I’m no attorney, obviously, but it seems that the length and complexity of the dance matters—and choreographers like Hanagami and Knight have definitely created a string of long and complicated moves that cannot be easily replicated by a layman. That said, the process of registering dance copyrights is still said to be a difficult one. “It’s really nasty at times. It gets really dark, but it’s a process, because it’s something new and it’s something that we haven’t seen in this commercial environment,” said Knight in . And according to this article by Legal Zoom on , copyrighted choꦅreography is “typically intended to be executed by skilled performers in front of an audience, such as a ballet or a modern dance routine”, with protection more likely if it’s performed by a skilled dancer, made for entertainment purposes, and involves a story or a theme.
Yet it’s still without question that even all these legal terms for copyrighting dance moves aren’t comprehensive enough, on top of being a minefield for most people to navigate. Take the Carlton Dance, which has long been synonymous with Carlton Banks, Ribeiro’s character in The Fresh Prince. That move had been rejected for copyright registration, even as Backpack Kid’s The Floss has since been granted the same copyright. More than just getting around legal loopholes, however, there’s also the looming ethical issues of Epic Games flagrantly appropriati🧜ng these dance moves as emotes without crediting its creators, many of whom are Black choreographers, dancers and artists—a conversation that has been broached . Beyond discussions around the legality of Epic Games’ conquest to translate every popular dance move into cold hard cash, it’s also crucial to examine why Epic Games is so keen to monetise this art form, compressing decades of cultural output and expressions into a single, quirky movement within a video game—and ultimately made purchasable for several Fortnite V-bucks.