I have to admit that my initial, knee-jerk reaction upon reading this article was mild anger and offhanded dismissal of the notion. However, giving it some honest thought afterwards... while I...
I have to admit that my initial, knee-jerk reaction upon reading this article was mild anger and offhanded dismissal of the notion. However, giving it some honest thought afterwards... while I don't think people should be able to copyright their dance moves or sue others for "appropriating" them, especially in digital form such as in videogames, I do think that at the very least the dance originators should be visibly credited in some way, if possible; a bit like as if the dances were released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
p.s. I can also totally understand why this subject might be a particularly touchy one for many music artists of colour, since historically speaking their work has quite often been coopted, copied or even flat-out stolen by record companies and white artists with little to no credit and/or compensation.
i cannot say that i personally care for the point this article makes or the issues involved here (i just don't see it as that important, to be honest), but it's an interesting article, i suppose,...
i cannot say that i personally care for the point this article makes or the issues involved here (i just don't see it as that important, to be honest), but it's an interesting article, i suppose, and there are some points that aren't really wrong.
Much of the discussion surrounding Epic’s appropriations is concerned with whether the lawsuits being brought by 2 Milly, Ribeiro, and others, are legally feasible; it centers the letter of the law, asking whether Epic is allowed to lift these dance moves. But this ignores the (at least) equally pertinent question of whether it should. This question cannot be adequately answered without squaring Epic’s behavior within a long history of mainstream white America stealing music and dance from black artists, decontextualizing their work, and repackaging it to make it more palatable (and thus, profitable) to white audiences. From early vaudeville and minstrel shows, to television shows like Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, to musicians like Elvis Presley, white America has long maintained a largely unacknowledged extractive relationship with the creative output of its black folk.
Despite the long passage of time since the Jazz Age, it’s easy to spot similar patterns of appropriation in Epic’s handling of Fortnite’s Emotes. Dances that originated in black spaces, that were born specifically from circumstances associated with growing up black in this country, are lifted, intact, and slotted neatly within Fortnite’s endless, heavily monetized library. Their cultural significance is stripped away and used to superficially spice up the game as a whole, without giving needed context to the art and style of what is being appropriated. In “Black Looks: Race and Representation,” bell hooks writes that “for black people, the pain of learning that we cannot control our images, how we see ourselves ....or how we are seen is so intense that it rends us.” Seeing a game as otherwise aesthetically ambiguous as Fortnite, seeing an interchangeable action ken doll with cargo pants and grenade holsters slip into regional performances from Memphis, Atlanta, and New York, is an uncomfortable reminder of the exploitable nature of hip hop culture, of the easy way blackness can be taken, remixed and made profitable outside the black community.
Yeah, this article is disturbing. I feel like it's trying to create racism controversy where there is none. Why does it matter who they're copying a dance from? I also find it off-putting that...
Yeah, this article is disturbing. I feel like it's trying to create racism controversy where there is none. Why does it matter who they're copying a dance from? I also find it off-putting that people are trying to claim copyright to dance moves. Why does everything have to be owned by someone?
“for black people, the pain of learning that we cannot control our images, how we see ourselves ....or how we are seen..." Seeing a game as otherwise aesthetically ambiguous as Fortnite, seeing an interchangeable action ken doll with cargo pants and grenade holsters slip into regional performances
They seem to be arguing both sides; It seems like they should pick one. How can someone complain about their skin color being tied to a specific image -- i.e. dances -- and then complain that a game they described as "aesthetically ambiguous" using these dance means you are pretending to be black, even if your character isn't? You can't want your image to NOT be tied to something and then claim ownership when someone else uses what you just complained about having tied to you.
In this case, Epic is selling the dance moves. Epic made this about money, not the plaintiffs. Nobody cares if people do the dance moves in real life with their friends, but making them a...
Why does everything have to be owned by someone?
In this case, Epic is selling the dance moves. Epic made this about money, not the plaintiffs. Nobody cares if people do the dance moves in real life with their friends, but making them a commercial product lands this firmly in the realm of copyright. It seems fairly clear to me that Epic does not have copyright over these dances, as Epic had no hand in creating and popularizing them.
I'll agree it's new territory when someone is making money off someone else's work, but why is a loose interpretation of a dance someone did in a music video or at a concert worthy of infringement...
I'll agree it's new territory when someone is making money off someone else's work, but why is a loose interpretation of a dance someone did in a music video or at a concert worthy of infringement claims, but other iconic poses and dances not a problem? Should developers not be allowed to sell emotes for things like 'The Running Man', 'The Sprinkler', or 'The Bus Driver'. What about gang signs? I would be disappointed in a dev promoting gang life in a game, but can you sue someone for making a gesture with their hand?
How do we know that an artist came up with a dance move themselves? If it's not documented/patented choreography, when is copyright established? Is it because they did it on TV? If you made a dance up with a bunch of friends and one of them was recorded somewhere doing that does, do they have all the standing to claim ownership to the dance now?
They really aren't "loose interpretations" though... in many cases they are basically exact copies (sometimes frame perfect) of the source. E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SpexAe82t4...
why is a loose interpretation of a dance someone did in a music video or at a concert worthy of infringement claims
Are you suggesting an end to copyright and intellectual property? Or do you mean that books and code and songs and other creative works should still be ownable, but choreography somehow should not?
Why does everything have to be owned by someone?
Are you suggesting an end to copyright and intellectual property? Or do you mean that books and code and songs and other creative works should still be ownable, but choreography somehow should not?
I think there's a big difference between a documented work and something that only exists in a sort of 'oral history' context. If someone actually documented and filed a patent for the...
I think there's a big difference between a documented work and something that only exists in a sort of 'oral history' context. If someone actually documented and filed a patent for the choreography of a dance, that's a fair argument to make, but when someone did a dance in a video or at a concert, I don't think that's something that should be owned. It's like the guy that claimed to create the Electric Slide in the 70s(?). He did this dance at clubs, other people started copying it and it caught fire. When the whole world was doing his dance with only something like 15 or the 20 steps, he threatened to sue everyone that did the dance wrong. I feel like a lot of the claims against Epic here are similar to that situation.
Okay, so, two things. First, patents are for inventions and not works of art, and creative works don’t need to be registered for copyright to attach. They’re different kinds of intellectual...
Okay, so, two things.
First, patents are for inventions and not works of art, and creative works don’t need to be registered for copyright to attach. They’re different kinds of intellectual property and they work differently.
Second, I can’t imagine what your idea of “documenting” a dance is, if you don’t think a (professionally produced and edited!) music video is documentation of deliberate, creative intent. This is much more like the Thriller zombie-dance than the Electric Slide.
It's not just a black issue, but more of a class issue, re-reading it, looking at the example of Marshmello, a prolific producer getting a branded dance. Nathan Barnatt who does a lot of dance and...
It's not just a black issue, but more of a class issue, re-reading it, looking at the example of Marshmello, a prolific producer getting a branded dance. Nathan Barnatt who does a lot of dance and physical comedy stuff on YouTube was knocked off, as well, and highlights the issue, at least as far as suing for copyright infringment is concerned. His experience is to do with actually copyriting his own dances, specifically his whole choreography. This was his dance that was copied into Fortnite, and he makes the point that it is simply uncopyrightable.
I don't mean to say anything like "this article is useless" but it's more reflective of the struggle for recognition among creatives than it is specifically about black people. If anything, the black people "being appropriated" (Alfonso Ribeiro and Snoop Dogg come to mind) are in a better position to fight this than a man who has had to sell his own posessions to finance a short film (Barnatt). Even looking at a video that attempts to link the dances with their sources a minority of them are actually black people.
I actually agree with the copyright system, as Barnatt describes it, however. Something small, a minor movement, be it Snoop Dogg's steering-wheel thing, or Barnatt's no-bones dance, are small enough to be generic, on the scale of a musical chord than a full song or even something as small as a melodic line in a song, or a library call in a program, effectively rendering it unenforceable as a copyrighted material. however, if they're going to credit one person, then they ought to credit everybody they've copied, provided they can find a source (such as Alfonso, Snoops, or Barnatt's examples).
I have to admit that my initial, knee-jerk reaction upon reading this article was mild anger and offhanded dismissal of the notion. However, giving it some honest thought afterwards... while I don't think people should be able to copyright their dance moves or sue others for "appropriating" them, especially in digital form such as in videogames, I do think that at the very least the dance originators should be visibly credited in some way, if possible; a bit like as if the dances were released under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
p.s. I can also totally understand why this subject might be a particularly touchy one for many music artists of colour, since historically speaking their work has quite often been coopted, copied or even flat-out stolen by record companies and white artists with little to no credit and/or compensation.
i cannot say that i personally care for the point this article makes or the issues involved here (i just don't see it as that important, to be honest), but it's an interesting article, i suppose, and there are some points that aren't really wrong.
Yeah, this article is disturbing. I feel like it's trying to create racism controversy where there is none. Why does it matter who they're copying a dance from? I also find it off-putting that people are trying to claim copyright to dance moves. Why does everything have to be owned by someone?
They seem to be arguing both sides; It seems like they should pick one. How can someone complain about their skin color being tied to a specific image -- i.e. dances -- and then complain that a game they described as "aesthetically ambiguous" using these dance means you are pretending to be black, even if your character isn't? You can't want your image to NOT be tied to something and then claim ownership when someone else uses what you just complained about having tied to you.
In this case, Epic is selling the dance moves. Epic made this about money, not the plaintiffs. Nobody cares if people do the dance moves in real life with their friends, but making them a commercial product lands this firmly in the realm of copyright. It seems fairly clear to me that Epic does not have copyright over these dances, as Epic had no hand in creating and popularizing them.
I'll agree it's new territory when someone is making money off someone else's work, but why is a loose interpretation of a dance someone did in a music video or at a concert worthy of infringement claims, but other iconic poses and dances not a problem? Should developers not be allowed to sell emotes for things like 'The Running Man', 'The Sprinkler', or 'The Bus Driver'. What about gang signs? I would be disappointed in a dev promoting gang life in a game, but can you sue someone for making a gesture with their hand?
How do we know that an artist came up with a dance move themselves? If it's not documented/patented choreography, when is copyright established? Is it because they did it on TV? If you made a dance up with a bunch of friends and one of them was recorded somewhere doing that does, do they have all the standing to claim ownership to the dance now?
They really aren't "loose interpretations" though... in many cases they are basically exact copies (sometimes frame perfect) of the source. E.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SpexAe82t4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJxMOnqLlRY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y4lc_P2Cok
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwdnA1J6Nl4#t=1m05s
Are you suggesting an end to copyright and intellectual property? Or do you mean that books and code and songs and other creative works should still be ownable, but choreography somehow should not?
I think there's a big difference between a documented work and something that only exists in a sort of 'oral history' context. If someone actually documented and filed a patent for the choreography of a dance, that's a fair argument to make, but when someone did a dance in a video or at a concert, I don't think that's something that should be owned. It's like the guy that claimed to create the Electric Slide in the 70s(?). He did this dance at clubs, other people started copying it and it caught fire. When the whole world was doing his dance with only something like 15 or the 20 steps, he threatened to sue everyone that did the dance wrong. I feel like a lot of the claims against Epic here are similar to that situation.
Okay, so, two things.
First, patents are for inventions and not works of art, and creative works don’t need to be registered for copyright to attach. They’re different kinds of intellectual property and they work differently.
Second, I can’t imagine what your idea of “documenting” a dance is, if you don’t think a (professionally produced and edited!) music video is documentation of deliberate, creative intent. This is much more like the Thriller zombie-dance than the Electric Slide.
It's not just a black issue, but more of a class issue, re-reading it, looking at the example of Marshmello, a prolific producer getting a branded dance. Nathan Barnatt who does a lot of dance and physical comedy stuff on YouTube was knocked off, as well, and highlights the issue, at least as far as suing for copyright infringment is concerned. His experience is to do with actually copyriting his own dances, specifically his whole choreography. This was his dance that was copied into Fortnite, and he makes the point that it is simply uncopyrightable.
I don't mean to say anything like "this article is useless" but it's more reflective of the struggle for recognition among creatives than it is specifically about black people. If anything, the black people "being appropriated" (Alfonso Ribeiro and Snoop Dogg come to mind) are in a better position to fight this than a man who has had to sell his own posessions to finance a short film (Barnatt). Even looking at a video that attempts to link the dances with their sources a minority of them are actually black people.
I actually agree with the copyright system, as Barnatt describes it, however. Something small, a minor movement, be it Snoop Dogg's steering-wheel thing, or Barnatt's no-bones dance, are small enough to be generic, on the scale of a musical chord than a full song or even something as small as a melodic line in a song, or a library call in a program, effectively rendering it unenforceable as a copyrighted material. however, if they're going to credit one person, then they ought to credit everybody they've copied, provided they can find a source (such as Alfonso, Snoops, or Barnatt's examples).