African-American Tom Jones fan has entered berserk mode

I have to say, I sort of think they are right in taking action. It's not a "he he isn't this fun" free meme, they are directly profiting from it and selling this stuff. They straight up ripped stuff from scrubs as well.

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-fresh-prince-of-bel-airs-alfonso-ribeiro-sues-epic-over-fortnites-fresh-emote/

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's Alfonso Ribeiro sues Epic over Fortnite's 'Fresh' emote

Alfonso Ribeiro, known to the world for his portrayal of Carlton Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has filed a lawsuit against Epic Games over its use of his signature "Carlton" dance in Fortnite. The lawsuit follows one filed earlier this month by rapper 2 Milly, who claimed that his Milly Rock dance appears in Fortnite, without credit or compensation, as the "Swipe It" emote.

Ribiero's lawsuit claims that he created and first performed "The Dance," as the suit calls it, in 1991 during the "Will's Christmas Show" episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and that it remains "distinctive, immediately recognizable, and inextricably linked to Ribeiro's identity, celebrity, and likeness." It references his performance of the dance on Dancing With the Stars (which he won, by the way, along with partner Witney Carson), during a celebrity golf tournament with Stephen Curry and Justin Timberlake, and alongside Will and Jaden Smith during a 2013 appearance on the Graham Norton Show.

"The Dance has become synonymous with Ribeiro, who is unanimously credited with creating The Dance," the lawsuit states. "Ribeiro has also been interviewed several times about the creation of The Dance and how to properly perform it. Accordingly, The Dance is a part of Ribeiro’s identity and The Dance’s unique movements readily evoke a connection to Ribeiro."

Epic, meanwhile, is making a killing on Fortnite: The suit repeats many of the claims made in the 2 Milly filing, including estimates that Fortnite has earned between $1-2 billion through in-game purchases and Bloomberg's estimate that Epic's valuation could hit $8.5 billion by the end of the year. It also notes a number of celebrity dance move lookalikes used without credit in the game, including Milly Rock, Donald Faison's dance moves from Scrubs, and the Carlton, which appears as the "Fresh" emote in Fortnite.

"Epic uses The Dance, and other dances, to create the false impression that Epic started these dances and crazes or that the performer who created them is endorsing the game," the suit says. "Indeed, Epic induces others and/or contributes to their performance and false attribution of The Dance. Fortnite Players have posted thousands of videos of themselves performing the 'Fresh' emote with the hashtag, #fortnitedance, without referencing The Dance or crediting Ribeiro as The Dance’s creator and owner."

"Epic has made a fortune from unlawfully and unfairly misappropriating Ribeiro’s and other artists’ creative expression, likeness, and endorsement without crediting or compensating these artists."

The lawsuit seeks a restraining order that will prevent Epic from selling or otherwise using the "Fresh" emote in Fortnite, damages, legal fees, and "such other and further relief as the Court may deem proper." As with the 2 Milly case, an Epic rep said that the company does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Man that shit so petty but when ninjas desperate for a buck they don't care.

They are making good money so Epic getting sued by them would make them quite the money. Artists can get money from their songs being used in videos so why not dance moves? Lol. They are going to dry up Epic's bank.

Wouldn’t NBC or whoever produced Fresh Prince have a case over Alfonso? He performed the dance on their dime making it NBC property.

I hate Fortnite so it’s ok with me.

"That's MY dance, waaah"

The dance is iconic to him, so I see the outcome going to his favor.

Sue them. Epic's Fornite steals way too much and makes a lot more. They need to pay out at some point.

/sarcasm, jk.

You can totally own a dance. Michael Jackson's family's lawyers would be all over them even if they even so much as did one moon-step, side-kick- or crotch-grab.

Carlton should kick their asses. Epic with their crappy games and endless and shameless greed.

Watch this video to the end to see what happens if you steal a man's dance.

Why bring up the the actor/dancer's race in the topic header? Who care if he is black?

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@onesiphorus said:

Is the second term you used is considered homophobic here and anywhere else?

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@onesiphorus said:

This thread still not locked? Do we need to have many fad threads?

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@onesiphorus said:

Is this relevant to System Wars? Why is is this thread not in the Political Gamers forum?

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@onesiphorus said:

This thread still not locked?

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@onesiphorus said:

How is this has anything to do with System Wars?

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@onesiphorus said:

How can I make an opinion of a card game that I never heard of until you mentioned it on your thread? Do you assume that everyone on System Wars knows Artifact?

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@onesiphorus said:

What has this got to do with System Wars?

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@onesiphorus said:

Why is this in System Wars?

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@onesiphorus said:

How is this political-themed thread belongs in System Wars? Why is it not posted in the Political Gamers forum?

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@onesiphorus said:

Do we have a forum called Political Gamers? Why is this topic not posted there?

What an inquisitive fellow.

@onesiphorus: How many black Tom Jones fans are there? TC’s description pretty much narrows it down to one person. Don’t start with this faux outrage b.s.

Identity politics, it's all the Rage these dayzzzz dontcha know. lol. You-a-peeon Americans need not apply. :P

I'm not White, so I hardly care about color these days but I must say, Fortnite itself is still a fun game, it's sad that it's getting itself into political BS.

Dude, you need to stop asking these types of questions. If you don't like the thread, don't click on it! It's that simple.

This thread needs to be closed. Not everyone on this thread is white & this is isn't StormFront. Not feeling the thread or some of the anti black people racist remarks on it either.

The sad part is Alfonso has a name. Calling him a "Black Tom Jones" is a form of removing his humanity. Something many racists are proficient. Humanity is still progressing but this thread definitely is step back. If thread was titled "Fresh Prince actor Alfonso Ribeiro seeks litigation from Epic" Then yea you guys can go from there, but the current title sends up many red flags.

And?

This seems to imply that offence is exclusive. Which itself, funnily enough, actually is racism.

Also what "anti black people racist remarks"? There is literally none. In fact, the only piece of implied racism posted, is bolded.

Ok lets do this. Do you hate black people?

I really like Will Smith. And think Bad Boys 2 is good, even though the critics said it sucked.

edit - Apparently that movie was racist, scratch that

Circles

A form of removing his humanity? GTFO with this... This thread is a step back from humanity progressing? You can't be serious...

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air played with many racial sterotypes because it was a show about a successful black man taking in his less financially fortunate nephew from the rough neighborhoods of Philadelphia. The character Carlton dressed and acted like his white country club friends. It was the main part of the humor of the show. When a person hears that Tom Jones song or sees the dance, they think of Carlton Banks, not Alfonso Ribeiro. And when a person hears "black Tom Jones fan" there is one that was notorious during the shows run. It was a recurring bit throughout. You either didn't get the joke, or you're trying your damnedest to be offended.

You turning this discussion into some racism debate is disingenuous at best. And before you try to label me, I will let you know I'm half Alfrican American myself.

My feeling is IP law needs relaxing. Epic however effectively bankrupted Silicon Knights for "stealing code" on an engine licensed them by Epic. That was in response to the claim Epic was withholding engine updates and effectively sabotaging their product - a claim more recently repeated by PUBG team. Epic is happy to chase down 14 year olds for modding their games so I've little doubt they'll pursue Carlton just as ruthlessly.

@uninspiredcup

no clue who this person is or why you would care

So why are you here?

I know, the dance is NAMED the Carlton after his character.

Is this what it's named in-game?

lol made mainstream news

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-46604012

It's not really stealing though. It's all in the public space. You can't own a genre or a dance move.

What the hell is an African-American?

How Epic loses.

Funnily enough, Valve "borrowed" meme/content with TF2 (without permission as far as I'm aware) and never got in shit once. They probably had some way to circumvent it.

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Team_Captain

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Hadouken

If my name was Alfonso, I'd pretend it was Carlton... No wait, that's still really nerdy... Maybe I would just go with African-American Tom Jones Fan. It is a touch racist but you said African-American so it's barely borderline casual racism really. You could have said Uncle Tom if was about Bill Cosby. *what's that mods?* Not ok?

I was wondering about the title though and how colour was relevant so it is political. Turn's out colour was not relevant whilst the thread is about dancing I thought it was about some crazed Tom Jones fan trying to steal a lock of his lustrous hair or something.

The running gag in the show is that he acts like a nerdy white guy.

Being (not racist), I watched it a fair bit.

It's actually an entire topic of conversation on a episode.

@uninspiredcup: I'm sure you're not racist. Just possibly mildly prejudiced on a subconscious level. Black guys are just as capable as being nerdy as white guys and in a blind test, whilst asked which is the best Star Trek captain I'm sure you couldn't tell the difference, they will all inevitably go for Kirk because they secretly want to be masculine. That's not white-masculine, just normal space captain masculine. A bit like Cisco. But Cisco is a boring character. Not black boring, just overall, I'm going to give you a long boring speech at the end boring. Kirk would make a wise crack about furbies or something and Aurora would swoon.

Na, Sisko's color comes up in Star Trek. He refuses to go into an idealized version of the 1960's holdeck because it re-writes history, in Gene Roddenberry's vision.

It's also a key point of the series with his alternate character Benny Russell, who writes DS9 but is refused the chance the Publish it.

Fun fact- The original ending of DS9 was suppose to jump back to this alternate reality were we find out he wrote Star Trek, but it was too risky.

https://screenrant.com/star-trek-deep-space-nine-alternate-ending/

I don't know that much about Star Trek *nervously checks around for women*...

I think I got my Sisco's wrong...

Space Captain

Thong Connoisseur

I knew exactly who @uninspiredcup was referring too as soon as I read the thread title (Carlton Banks), if he'd said Alfonso Ribiero I wouldn't have got the joke.

@GarGx1: I could see that if the title had referred to a "famous african-american Tom Jones fan". But without having any kind of context such as WHY he went "berserk", there's really nothing to indicate that it's referring to Albeiro. I mean, I'm sure that he's not the ONLY black Tom Jones fan on the entire planet. When I saw the title I was expecting a video of like, some random nobody tearing s*** up for some reason.

Granted, I'm not saying that the thread title is racist or anything like that. I'm just saying that it's a bad title. Personally, I didn't have the slightest idea what the hell this was even about until after I'd read the article. The title didn't really provide any useful information whatsoever.

Carlton Banks is the Tom Jones fan.

We currently have no confirmation Alfonso Ribeiro is a fan.

Edit- plot twist

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-alfonso-ribeiro-came-up-with-the-carlton-dance-fresh-prince-of-bel-air/

"The Carlton Dance was created when it said in the script: 'Carlton dances,'" he explained. "It was never even intended to be funny; it was just that he was dancing. The dance is ultimately Courteney Cox in the Bruce Springsteen video 'Dancing in the Dark'; that's the basis. Or in Eddie Murphy's 'Delirious' video, 'The White Man Dance' as he called it. And I said, 'That is the corniest dance on the planet that I know of, so why don't I do that?'"

Courtney Cox is livid right now.

Maybe it's Eddie Murphy who should be suing

Is it all Americans getting upset? Probably.

What Scrubs stuff did they rip off?

@uninspiredcup: I can understand JD being in love with Turk.

@freedomfreak: The donald faison poison dance.

@fedor: Yeah, just saw it. All these kids are gonna be doing "fortnite" dances while they miss out on the actual source material. I'll stop sounding old now.

@uninspiredcup: In that case, the title isn't even accurate in hindsight. Carlton Banks certainly didn't go into berserk mode, seeing as how he doesn't even exist.

Anyway, not that I'm annoyed by the title or anything. And yeah, I get that it was a joke. I'm just saying that there's a reason most people don't try to turn their titles into these kinds of jokes. Because then we'd have about 30 different topics on this page, and no idea what any of them are even about. People would literally have to click on every single topic only to find out afterwards that most of them are about something that they aren't even interested in.

Moving on, yeah I agree that I'd get pissed off about that too if I were in Ribeiro's shoes. Someone did bring up a question that I'm interested in, though. Even though he created the dance, I was under the impression that he created the dance for the show. So in a legal sense, does that have any bearing at all on his ownership of the dance?

"Ninjas"?

How is this any different than Apple suing because someone used a rounded off boxes for there apps? Or Michael Buffer having a patent on "are you ready to rumble"? If a company profits off of something you're famously performed or made popular then you should profit off of it as well.