“Fortnite” collaboration backfires? An old dance move takes Sony to court

The opening situation is pretty surreal: a boy band dance from 1999 suddenly comes back to life in 2024 thanks to Deadpool & Wolverine and Fortnite, and then sends Sony Music straight into court. It feels like the bad ending of Undertale getting triggered early: you think it’s just a tribute, but behind it is a whole combo chain of legal moves. As a player who has spent years nitpicking “animation details” in indie games, after reading this lawsuit, my head is full of little pixel people dancing.

Let’s line up the facts first: back then, 'N Sync had a classic performance at the 1999 RMA Radio Music Awards, where they did a medley that included this “Bye Bye Bye” dance. The choreographer was Darrin Henson, who later won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography in 2000 for this routine, making it very much a signature work. According to him, the copyright to this dance belongs to him, but Sony Music treated the routine as a licensable asset, gave it to the film Deadpool & Wolverine, and it then made its way into Fortnite as a crossover dance emote.

Speaking of which, that opening sequence in Deadpool & Wolverine is extremely “game-like”: Deadpool happily slaughtering enemies while dancing to “Bye Bye Bye”, like Hotline Miami suddenly being stuffed into a boy band music video. The movie blew up, the old dance went viral again, and then it conveniently got bundled as a crossover item and put on sale in Fortnite. This emote went live on September 24, 2024, but disappeared quietly after just five days and has never returned to the shop. Looking at this lawsuit now, the reason for that sudden removal starts to look rather intriguing.

Interestingly, the only defendant this time is Sony Music; Epic Games, which operates the game, wasn’t named. The plaintiff claims in the complaint that the rights to the work belong to him, so he wants the court to affirm full ownership and to transfer all profits obtained by Sony Music Entertainment and its licensees to him. In indie game terms, it’s like saying: “You took assets that don’t belong to you, handed out keys everywhere, and even did a merch collab with them—now I want to claw back all that revenue.” This point is crucial: the accusation isn’t “the game used the moves,” but “who has the right to say they can sell this dance.”

From our player perspective, this is a bit different from skin crossovers. Skins are usually almost 1:1 use of a character’s likeness, and few people question whether they need a license; but actions and dances have always had a bit of a gray-area vibe. Some developers, like Celeste, use tiny pixel animations to express character personality, while others, like Fortnite, directly transplant real-world dances into the in-game shop and sell them as standalone emotes. The former is more like being influenced by a style; the latter gets very close to “selling a concrete creative work,” and the copyright sensitivity is naturally not the same.

As someone who’s used to savoring animation details in pixel-art indie games, I can actually understand the choreographer’s demands. It’s like you made a small platformer with nothing but a jump mechanic, won awards purely on level design, and then years later someone directly copies your levels into a big AAA game as Easter eggs without even a credit. That feeling would definitely be a bitter laugh with a touch of heartbreak. Unfortunately, in legal terms, whether “moves/dances” can be strictly protected by copyright has always been controversial. This case is just pushing the debate back into the spotlight again; it may not deliver a definitive answer.

For us players, in the short term this might only affect a single crossover emote, but in the long run it could shake the boundaries of the entire “culture of homage.” Future crossovers may become more expensive, collaborations more cautious, and “action museums” like Fortnite, which collabs with everything, might see less carefree experimentation. From my perspective as someone who prefers small, creative titles, I still hope the industry can find a balance like Celeste meeting Undertale: let original creators receive the respect and revenue they deserve, without locking every creative interaction behind a cease-and-desist letter. As for whether to boycott anyone over this incident, my suggestion is to watch calmly and treat this lawsuit as a serious copyright lesson. Next time you see a familiar move in an indie game, maybe spare a thought for the “little choreographer” behind it.