"Swipe It" was available for purchase in Fortnite for roughly $5 USD, but was recently removed from the in-game store. Emotes are one of the ways Epic Games has been able to continually profit from the product. While the article does not state what 2 Milly ultimate goal is (complete dance removal from the game, all proceeds from emote sales, etc.), this could set a precedence for future actions and legal cases.
If 2 Milly wins this lawsuit and someone dances the "Milly Rock," could they be sued (for example)? What if the person was doing it for fun and no profit was involved? What if it was to help raise money for a charity?
This becomes a very dangerous set-up on how we approach creative properties like dance moves, which can't be trademarked or copyrighted. The creator doesn't have legal standing unless they trademark an entire type of dance that consists of multiple moves. Or the name of the dance move can be trademarked but not the dance that's affiliated with it.
From a legal standing Epic Games has the upper hand. Because there is no way for the dance move to be copyrighted/trademarked, Epic Games doesn't need to gain permission to use it. It's kind of crappy that they didn't ask first. But they didn't have to.
This isn't the first time that Epic Games has been criticized with using dance moves as emotes from musicians. Chance the Rapper has spoken out against the practice. The game contains dance emotes that look similar to Snoop Dogg's dance from the video 'Drop It Like It's Hot' and a move by Donald Faison in the TV show 'Scrubs.' Epic Games has not responded to requests for comments, and most likely won't if the lawsuit moves forward.
While they are likely to win said case, in the future it wouldn't hurt for them to try and reach out to the content creators for permission first.
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