Hanagami v. Epic Games

Choreographer Kyle Hanagami (plaintiff) owned the copyright in a widely viewed five-minute choreographic work set to the song “How Long” by singer Charlie Puth. Epic Games (defendant) produced a popular video game called Fortnite. Fortnite players could purchase virtual animations, called emotes, that their avatars could use to celebrate or dance in the game. Hanagami sued Epic Games in federal district court for copyright infringement, alleging that an emote called “It’s Complicated” with 16 counts of dance movements had unlawfully copied a four-count sequence of movements from a recognizable portion of Hanagami’s registered choreographic work. Specifically, the complaint alleged that the emote copied recognizable movements, tempo, body positions, and transitions from Hanagami’s choreography. The district court ruled that choreographic work is a collection of individually unprotectable poses and that Hanagami had alleged the copying of only a few unprotectable individual poses and not the copying of a protected collection of poses. The court dismissed the infringement claim as a matter of law. Hanagami appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, arguing that poses were not the only expressive element in a choreographic work and that other relevant elements existed, such as body position, body actions, transitions, use of space, timing, energy, and repetition. Hanagami argued that if all these elements were considered, he had alleged the infringement of a protected arrangement or selection of those elements and, therefore, had alleged a valid claim.