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Rapper 2 Milly Sues Epic Games For Stealing His Dance.

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
https://kotaku.com/rapper-2-milly-sues-epic-games-for-stealing-his-dance-1830888259

Rapper 2 Milly is suing the maker of Fortnite, Epic Games, for selling his signature “Milly Rock” dance as an emote called “Swipe It.” Pierce Bainbridge, the law firm representing 2 Milly, filed the complaint in the Central District Court of California today, accusing Epic of, among other things, copyright infringement, and exploiting African American talent for profit in the game.

The Milly Rock dance was first introduced into Fortnite as part of its season five battle pass, which came out in July. The dance, which was popularized in 2 Milly’s 2014 song by the same name, was rebranded as “Swipe It,” and given to players who purchased the roughly $10 battle pass and reached its Tier 63 reward. 2 Milly told Kotaku in an email at the time that he felt like his dance had been stolen and that he wished Epic had approached him about using the dance before it was added to Fortnite. He’s now suing the company for damages and to have the emote removed from the game.

“I was never compensated by Epic Games for their use of the ‘Milly Rock,’” 2 Milly said in a press release. “They never even asked for my permission. I am thrilled to have David Hecht and his team at Pierce Bainbridge representing me to help right this wrong.”

It’s unclear whether today’s lawsuit will go anywhere, but if it does it could have big consequences not just for Fortnite, which has been copying and selling dance moves from lots of artists, but other games that also sell dance emotes.



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Dunki

Member
“I was never compensated by Epic Games for their use of the ‘Milly Rock,’” 2 Milly said in a press release. “They never even asked for my permission. I am thrilled to have David Hecht and his team at Pierce Bainbridge representing me to help right this wrong.” It is fucking laughable when you know that it was not his invention either but according to some people thats how you do it in the hood.

 

WaterAstro

Member
He just made an enemy out of millions, which will be even more damaging to him, but I guess he's trading his career for a short pay off.
 

RedVIper

Banned


A dance does not have to tell a story or be presented before an audience to receive copyright protection.
Copyright protection for a dance begins as soon as the dance is created and fixed in a tangible object.
It does not need to be registered with the copyright office to receive copyright protection.

So, I can simply start recording myself spazing out in front of a camera, then sue everyone who ends up doing some dance move similar to the ones I did? Sounds great. How do you prove who invented it if you don't have to copyright it?
 
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Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
Not my area, but the law firm may be trying to leverage a settlement out of Epic via the bad publicity more than actually winning a legal argument.
 

Klondyke

Banned
But he is black so it is totally different..... And yes this is their argumentation for this.
Yeah, I know.

I would understand this complaint, if this was real "cultural appropriation" Like taking a hundreds of years old dance routine from a distinguished "culture" But this is just dancing, and Hip-hop culture and such is not in my opinion exclusive to a certain set of people.

Like, how the hell do you prove a dance move? If it were a routine, like lasted for minutes (macarena, los ketchup (?) dance for example, dances that you associate immidietly with a certain song,)
 
A dance does not have to tell a story or be presented before an audience to receive copyright protection.
Copyright protection for a dance begins as soon as the dance is created and fixed in a tangible object.
It does not need to be registered with the copyright office to receive copyright protection.

So, I can simply start recording myself spazing out in front of a camera, then sue everyone who ends up doing some dance move similar to the ones I did? Sounds great. How do you prove who invented it if you don't have to copyright it?

That's for the lawyers to figure out I guess :)
 

Ecto311

Member
Looks like a shittier carlton dance. Just delete it and tell dude to fuck off. That vid up there is 7 min to explain 2 seconds of actual dance. Plus when he explains it at the very end he looks so fuckin awkward it's hard to watch like he knows it's bullshit and doesn't want to do it.
 

BANGS

Banned
If it's cultural appropriation, shouldn't this be a class action lawsuit and not something where one guy gets all the money if he wins?
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
That has got to be one of the most generic dance moves to sue over. Let's be honest here.

What's next? Spirit Fingers or Jazz Hands variants being sued?
 
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BANGS

Banned
Nope! Wrong again! The dance was put "into" Fortnite because it was already popular with literally multi-millions of people. The name of the dance was named after him for goodness sakes lol.
And fornite made it more popular than that hack ever could, so what's the problem?
 

Hexa

Member
A dance does not have to tell a story or be presented before an audience to receive copyright protection.
Copyright protection for a dance begins as soon as the dance is created and fixed in a tangible object.
It does not need to be registered with the copyright office to receive copyright protection.

So, I can simply start recording myself spazing out in front of a camera, then sue everyone who ends up doing some dance move similar to the ones I did? Sounds great. How do you prove who invented it if you don't have to copyright it?

I think it's important to differentiate between a dance and dance move in this context. A dance is composed of a set of precise varied moves in a specific order. That's why this case is dead in the water.
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
Yet Destiny just added the Rimmer salute from Red Dwarf, and Doug Naylor thinks it’s awesome and isn’t fussed about legal issues.

You can’t make this shit up. What a tit.
 

Shin

Banned
Dem "rappers" yo....what a generation politely put.
Artists bigger than his whole crew have had their signature moves used and didn't make much of a fuss.
They were probably smart enough to see it as PR/popularity boost, instead these so-called artists want money for what supposed to be a dance?
It's hard not to L.O.L. at this "news"...
 

GrayFoxRJ

Banned
And some people don't get it why Jet Lee refused to star in Matrix movies because of mocap.

You train for years, develop your own style, to a random company to capture it and throw it in some dozens of videogames and 3d movies without consent.

It is almost the same concept. People refuse to get it. Libertarianists....
 
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Dunki

Member
Just give the man his props that he deserves. That's all.
Again he basically took it from his hood to make it his own? I give him props when he actually would give probs to the person who created this.

What I would do is to seek out this person give him/her the money and show the fucking bird to this asshole
 

GrayFoxRJ

Banned
And look at his stellar career now!
You know it has nothing to do with it.

In fact, he had a good set of movies in the 2000s, even refusing matrix.

He had suffered from a disease in the last years, but he recently starred a huge Chinese movie and is confirmed to be the emperor in the Mulan remake movie. I don't know your concept of success, but starring a Disney remake movie and an epic Chinese movie seem to indicate a successful carreer to me.

One thing totally unrelated to the other. He just wanted to protect what he considered to be his legacy of years of training from being sold and transfered as archives to 3rd party purposes without his consent.
 
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cryptoadam

Banned
Not my area, but the law firm may be trying to leverage a settlement out of Epic via the bad publicity more than actually winning a legal argument.

sounds like thats the game here. He want to get paid.

I think epic already removed the dance if I am not mistaken? Or at least made it so it can't be bought anymore.

I gotta kinda side with Milly on this one. I don't think he has much of a case, and I don't think he actually "invented" the dance. But its the American way to get paid. He had a dance and EPIC is making bank of it so why not try to get your piece. If I was in his shoes I would do the same.
 

DonF

Member
I believe that it was the lawyers idea more than the individual. He even gives them free press by stating their name.

Its like lawyers approached him and asked if he wanted free money/publicity.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
He's literally the guy that made the dance popular.

But did he create it?

Also FORTNITE made the dance popular. 2 Milley maybe made it known in the hip hop scene, but 10 year old white kids are doing his dance because of Fortnite not him.

I still don't have a problem with trying to get paid, we would all do the same. Gonna respect the hustle but I think in the end Epic is going to tell him to F off and probably remove the dance.

Maybe he can get his dance on Souljaboys new console LOL.
 

Dunki

Member
He's literally the guy that made the dance popular.
I question this. I never heard of this guy before but I knew the Fortnite emote. He maybe pretty popular in his hood and genre I do not know but worldwide even in America? I doubt it. He is not a Beyonce or Lady Gaa
 

Grinchy

Banned
I don't know why someone hasn't just copyrighted 1000 random shitty little body movements so they can sue for years to come.
 

Shin

Banned
He got the props he deserved when his washed up ass got some of his content put in the hottest piece of media... he should be thanking them...
Instead he's spinning the attention Fornite gave him in negativity instead of something positive.
The better move would be to reach out to Epic discuss stuff behind closed doors, do a public embrace together and promote both the game and the dance.
Did he even try and of those or first emotion triggered and lead to this? Ain't they called professionals for a reason (it also means subduing some small* stuff at times and set examples...good ones).
 

Dunki

Member
Instead he's spinning the attention Fornite gave him in negativity instead of something positive.
The better move would be to reach out to Epic discuss stuff behind closed doors, do a public embrace together and promote both the game and the dance.
Did he even try and of those or first emotion triggered and lead to this? Ain't they called professionals for a reason (it also means subduing some small* stuff at times and set examples...good ones).
What I would do is to remove this dance from their game and never talk about him ever again. Then we will see how popular this person really is

Also in their public statement I would add the video of him saying where he got the move from.
 
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Filben

Member
He’s now suing the company for damages
Come the fuck on now. Whenever I read "damage" I want to suckerpunch them in the face -- that's damage. Epic didn't physically steal something, they didn't trash something. They don't make money with something someone else have artisticly and thoughtfully crafted. Just say you want money because you feel treated badly (and some guys were more clever than you) but don't give anyone this lame ass "damage" excuse.

This lawsuit is literally wasting everyone's time that could invested in serious issues instead of this fairytale bubble money issue.

In my country there were two banks fighting for seven years in court over the use of the color red for their corporate identity and they arguing if each uses the exact same tone and saturation. And the court actually decided instead of telling them to fuck of with these non-issues. When you running out of all the other first world problems...
 

mckmas8808

Banned
But did he create it?

Also FORTNITE made the dance popular. 2 Milley maybe made it known in the hip hop scene, but 10 year old white kids are doing his dance because of Fortnite not him.

I still don't have a problem with trying to get paid, we would all do the same. Gonna respect the hustle but I think in the end Epic is going to tell him to F off and probably remove the dance.

Maybe he can get his dance on Souljaboys new console LOL.

The bolded isn't true. 10 year old white kids are on YouTube too. They like hip-hop also. Lots of white kids knew of the dance before it was in Fortnite. And there's no way Soujaboy is coming out with a console is he?
 
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