{"id":7165,"date":"2025-07-31T15:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T15:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/rauw-alejandro-choreographer-sues-epic-games-over-fortnite-dance-moves\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T15:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T15:10:07","slug":"rauw-alejandro-choreographer-sues-epic-games-over-fortnite-dance-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/rauw-alejandro-choreographer-sues-epic-games-over-fortnite-dance-moves\/","title":{"rendered":"Rauw Alejandro Choreographer Sues Epic Games Over Fortnite Dance Moves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span> dancer who\u2019s worked with Usher, Jennifer Lopez and Selena Gomez is suing Fortnite maker Epic Games over allegations that the game stole his choreography from a recent Rauw Alejandro<\/strong> music video.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a complaint filed Wednesday in federal court, Fefe Burgos<\/strong> says Epic ripped off his copyright-protected moves from Alejandro\u2019s \u201cTouching The Sky\u201d video<\/a> and then sold them to Fortnite\u2019s millions of players as add-ons within the popular online video game.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t\u201cEpic has unfairly profited from exploiting Burgos\u2019s registered choreography,\u201d writes Burgos\u2019 lawyer David L. Hecht<\/strong>. \u201cDefendants capitalized on the registered choreography\u2019s popularity, particularly with Burgos\u2019s younger fans, by selling [it] as an in-game purchase.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBurgos \u2013 who says he\u2019s also choreographed Chris Brown and Timbaland \u2014 claims that Epic pulls in billions in revenue \u201cexclusively through these types of in-game purchases\u201d in Fortnite \u2013 and that some of that money ought to go to the dance\u2019s creator.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEpic should not be able to profit from Burgos\u2019s fame and hard work,\u201d Burgos\u2019 lawyers write. \u201cDespite all that money, Epic is unwilling to pay artists and creators like Burgos their fair share for blatantly using their intellectual property.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesperson for Epic did not immediately return a request for comment. Alejandro is not involved in the lawsuit on either side. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe case is just the latest over viral dance moves featured in online video games. Alfonso Ribeiro<\/strong>, who played Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air<\/em>, sued Epic in 2018<\/a> over the use of his heavily-memed \u201cCarlton dance; Russell Horning, the mother of the so-called Backpack Kid who helped popularize the viral \u201cFloss\u201d dance, later did the same<\/a>. In April, a TikTok user who says she created the viral \u201cApple dance\u201d to a Charli XCX song sued Roblox for selling it.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor years such cases faced skeptical judges, who questioned whether simple dance moves were even covered by copyright law in the first place. But in 2023, a federal appeals court issued a first-of-its-kind ruling reviving such a lawsuit against Epic, saying there was \u201csee no reason to treat choreography differently\u201d from longer dance routines.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Wednesday\u2019s new lawsuit, Burgos is represented by the same lawyers that won that 2023 ruling. They say Epic stole the central move from Alejandro\u2019s 2024 \u201cTouching The Sky,\u201d a platinum-certified hit that reached the top of Billboard\u2019s US Latin Pop Airplay chart. In the video, the Latin superstar can be seen performing the move as he dances across a number of New York City locations.<\/p>\n

\n\tLess than a year after the video was released, Burgos says Epic began offering players an emote \u2013 a pre-programmed dance that players can buy \u2013 under the name \u201cTouching The Sky.\u201d If purchased, Burgos says the add-on allowed Fortnite players to perform identical moves from Alejandro\u2019s video: \u201cEpic\u2019s brazen infringement of the registered choreography is undeniable.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A dancer who\u2019s worked with Usher, Jennifer Lopez and Selena Gomez is suing Fortnite maker Epic Games over allegations that the game stole his choreography from a recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6572,6573,4353,6574,6033,1557,693,6571,479],"class_list":["post-7165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-alejandro","tag-choreographer","tag-dance","tag-epic","tag-fortnite","tag-games","tag-moves","tag-rauw","tag-sues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}