Fortnite Allegedly Steals Rapper 2 Milly's Dance Move for an Emote

Epic is under fire for their dance move, yet again. Professional rapper 2 Milly has spoken out about having his signature dance move implemented into Fortnite without his consent.

You may not know who 2 Milly is, but he's still a well-known name in his respective industry. He also is known for the Milly Rock, a song and dance move that gathered over 17 million views on YouTube. Fortnite's fifth season also released a new emote, known as Swipe It. It bore a strong resemblance to the dancing in Milly Rock.

2 Milly spoke about this problem to CBS news. While he isn't looking for profiting off the situation, he still wants to protect what he feels is his intellectual property.

"Everybody was just like, 'Yo, your dance is in the game. They actually sell that particular move. It's for purchase. That's when I really was like ... oh nah, this can't go on too long.
. . .
I don't even want to bash them for all the millions. Know what I am saying? It's not really like that. I just feel like I have to protect what's mine."

Mr. Milly has been attempting to contact Epic regarding the emote, either for compensation or to "put the actual rap songs behind the dances that make so much money as Emotes."

This has brought into question the idea of copyright protection toward choreographic works. Business and entertainment lawyer Merlyne Jean-Louis states that there's no case law for such a situation involving individual dance moves like this. The US Copyright Office also doesn't accept patents for dance moves due to creative expression.

"There's a lot of case lawsuits surrounding the copyright of music. Lyrics. Sounds. There's a full body of case law related to that. But regarding choreographic works, that does not exist."

This isn't the first time Epic has garnered news attention due to problems with their emotes. They were scrutinized for prioritizing professional dancers over fan submissions in a dance-off contest. And more recently, they had accidentally" added jiggle physics to the breasts of female characters with a particular dance emote.

Epic has not commented on the situation at this time.