Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/15/the-carlton-dance-is-not-e.html
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It would be like trying to copyright a chord in music. A dance move is a building block for an actual piece of art - a choreography - which CAN be copyrighted.
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isn’t that called a “sample” and is protected under copyright law?
There’s very specific rules for that. For example if someone recreates 100% on their own the exact same 1-2 seconds of sound/music its not considered a sample. However taking a sample directly from another artist is different, it’d be like in Fortnite the dance is recreated solely from direct data of Carlton doing the dance… which was not it was done.
Yeah, I have to agree with this and the ruling. I mean where would the 80s/90s be if only one person/group could running man or cabbage patch or kid and play?
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Gotta admire his ambition. He’s trying to patent pretty much every dance move ever. He’s like the Microsoft of dance.
Had they used Tom Jones as the music maybe he and Tom would have a claim.
Um… IIRC, Big Al stole that move from Molly Ringwald, originally; even though he clearly does it better:
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Funny thing is I believe there is an interview of him saying he stole the moves. I just can’t find it.
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How old were you when you found out Michael Jackson didn’t invent the Moonwalk? I was so old…
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Or…
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When I first found out, it was from a clip from The Little Prince by Bob Fosse. Then later I found it was even older than that and many people did it in the past.
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I bet that the writers that came up with his name want some payout, too.
Ehhh… I have kind of mixed feelings on this. I don’t think the dance sequence should necessarily be eligible for copyright, especially as copyright law stands now, but I find it pretty skeevy of Fortnite and other games to profit off the memetic qualities of someone else’s source material. Would anyone pay money for that animation if it wasn’t the Carlton Dance? Probably, but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say not as many would. We wouldn’t have as many questions about Matt Furie suing over a paid cosmetic item featuring a knockoff of Pepe the Frog.
Guild Wars 2 has had the Carlton Dance as the dance animation for six years now, but it’s a) baked into the base game for free as one of five default dance animations, and b) such a trivial part that you couldn’t convincingly argue that it had any effect on the game’s revenue, while cosmetic dance animations are a significant part of Fortnite’s monetization scheme. I’m not sure Ribeiro has even noticed. (Or maybe he has and is just smart enough to know there’s really no point in suing when money isn’t changing hands.)
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As an actor on a show, I’d assume that anything you do on that show (even if it was an original improvisation) is a work-for-hire and the production company would own the rights.
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Especially since it’s called the Carlton not the Alfonso.
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You’d have to see the videos he’s referring to. But I think there’s a difference between him melding the performances of two other artists and filtering it through his character, and Fortnite basically saying “you can buy the Calrton… I mean Fresh dance!”
As far as dance moves in games go, haven’t basically all of them included John Travolta’s finger pointing move from Saturday Night Fever as “Disco dance”? Seems like this is kind of settled.
