A choreographer’s lawsuit over Fortnite dance moves isn’t dead after all
techcrunch.comA prominent choreographer’s lawsuit against Fortnite makerEpic Games is back on after the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appealsoverturned a lower court’s decision to throw the case out last year.
Kyle Hanagami sued Epic last year, accusing the company of stealing his choreography for one of Fortnite’s in-game emote. Hanagami has crafted hit dance routines for Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Justin Bieber and an array of K-Pop stars, among other major names in music.
The emote, called “It’s Complicated,” showed up in Fortnite Chapter 2 Season 3 in August 2020. Players could purchase the notably complex series of dance moves for their own digital avatars to use in Fortnite matches (players often deploy emotes to celebrate wins or troll opponents).
In his lawsuit, Hanagami accused Epic of lifting the sequence of moves from his own original YouTube video, set to the song “How Long” by Charlie Puth. That video had 37 million views as of November 2023.
Epic makes money from the virtual items and dance moves it sells in the Fortnite store, which range in price from a few dollars on up depending on the item’s rarity. All of these transactions happen using V-Bucks, Fortnite’s in-game currency. In 2020, Epic charged 500 V-Bucks, valued at $5 USD, for the dance emote at the heart of the case. TechCrunch has reached out to Epic for comment on the case.
“You know we’re buying it — oh my god. Man, the movements, the beat, and everything is amazing with that emote,” one Fortnite YouTuber exclaimed during a review of the in-game store’s stock the week the dance was introduced.
When a district court dismissed the case last year, it argued that the individual poses within a stretch of choreography are not protected by copyright. According to a
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