Alfonso Ribeiro is reportedly suing the creators of Fortnite and NBA 2K for ripping off his Carlton Dance, the one he made famous on the iconic ’90s sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. But that might prove to be slightly difficult due to an old 2012 clip.
In video footage from TMZ, Ribeiro says on camera he “stole” the move from Courtney Cox and Eddie Murphy.
“It’s a combo of all of that and little bit of me mixed in,” he explains. “Courtney Cox did the ‘Dancing In The Dark’ video with Bruce Springsteen. When he brought Courtney Cox up on stage, she did that dance and then it was Eddie Murphy’s white man dance in the Delirious video.”
Ribeiro’s attorney, David Hecht, defended the video, saying, “On numerous occasions, Mr. Ribeiro has commented on his inspiration for the dance. In the clip, Mr. Ribeiro used the word “stole” in jest. He did not use the word ‘stole’ in the legal sense.
“In his words, it was Ribeiro’s (a professional dancer’s) interpretation of what a white person looks like when they dance. That describes a copyrightable choreographic work.”
However, Ribeiro claims he created the dance and is currently in the process of copyrighting it. He is also seeking proper compensation.
Looool golddigger lawyers paycheck slippin away and they go on a panic mode trying way too hard to make a case out of nothing and desperately hang onto it, shit never gets old.
if he copywrited it a while ago hed have a case but he saw 15 billion dollar game that probably charges for the feature(never played it so dont know but do know games be charging people now for extras) & tried to get a piece, can’t hurt to try wouldn’t be surprised if they threw him a nice chunk & included him as a character foe more earnings as well watching Courtney cox lol right on
Fuck what they say, everybody knows that’s the Carlton dance… Pay that man
copyrighting dance moves?!?! you can’t be serious. as many motherfuckers on planet earth copied michael jackson’s dances moves (and im not talking the moonwalk), he could have sued so many people yet he was never petty enough to do it. with all due respect, this is some petty ass shit alf is doing. next motherfuckers are gonna copyright jokes and memes. smfh.
how in the world can you copyright dance moves. how does that make any sense?
I don’t see the problem.
You can copyright a combination of words, why not a combination of moves?