Threatened to sue for plagiarizing Epic Games’ exclusive dance and extreme counter-dame

This is not the first time Epic Games involved in lawsuits related to dances in Fortnite. On October 30, Matthew Geiler, more commonly known as the “Dancing Pumpkin Man” with a fairly famous pumpkin dance, and his agency – Sick Picnic Media sent a warning letter to the publisher. practice Fortnite. The content of the letter alleging Fortnite’s Pump It Up dance is Copyright infringement and ask the company to stop doing that immediately if it doesn’t want to be sued in court.
​

Unfortunately, Matthew Geiler could not fulfill his intention. In response to the threat, yesterday, December 9, Epic Games not only did not remove but also quickly filed a complaint against Geiler and Sick Picnic Media, claiming that Dancing Pumpkin Man is not a registered character. rights, so Geiler has no right to ask Epic to remove his Pump It Up dance.

In fact, the Pump It Up dance in Fortnite and Dancing Pumpkin Man look quite similar when the characters’ heads are all pumpkins. Pump It Up was launched by Epic during the Fortnitemares event on Halloween this year. However, in the complaint, Epic Game denied Geiler’s allegation, arguing that he was not the first person to create this character. The pumpkin-headed character is incredibly popular, and the outfit Geiler wears in the dance isn’t “identical” to Fortnite’s Pump It Up.
​

More interestingly, the lawsuit also points out that Geiler in the past “used to allow Epic Games to use the characters, videos and content therein” and this is not a baseless statement because as noted by the Polygon site, before Here, Geiler actually confirmed this in a Facebook comment and an interview with MEL Magazine.

Accordingly, Epic wants to prove to the court that they do not infringe the copyright of the dance of Dancing Pumpkin Man. And if Geiler and Sick Picnic Media do not withdraw their takedown requests and allow Epic to continue using Dancing Pumpkin Man, the studio will pursue the lawsuit against Geiler to the end before he can sue Epic.
​

With that said, this isn’t the first time Epic Games has been sued for pirating dance moves in Fortnite. There have been many artists and singers who stood up to sue the publisher for using their dance illegally, but in March 2019, the US Supreme Court dismissed all these lawsuits because that these are just simple choreography and that copyrighting a dance is too complicated. Neither Geiler nor Sick Picnic Media have responded at this time.​