Legal updates and opinions
News / News
Fortnite, Wimbeldon And Tour De France
By Donvay Wegierski, Director
Fanatic or not we will all be familiar with the above, each comprising sport in its own shape and form. Interestingly though the prize money in Epic Game’s Fortnite World Cup 2018/2019 is said to be around US$3.000.000 and tops the major sporting events* prize money being higher than that of Wimbeldon (US$2.980.000), Tour De France (US$580.000), The Indy 500 (US$2530.000), and The Masters (US$1.980.000).
Although Fornite is available to anyone in free-to-play mode a player can either earn or simply buy V-Bucks which is the sale of virtual goodies in the game including costumes, stickers and dance moves. The exact value of these sales is unknown though estimated at US$two billion annually.
With this monetisation, it is no surprise that celebrities including Alfonso Ribeiro better known as Carlton from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Brooklyn Rapper 2 Milly and Instagram’s Backpack Kid have pursued copyright infringement proceedings in relation to some of the dance moves in Fornite. This has raised the question whether you can own the copyright in dance moves. For copyright to subsist in a work, the work should be original and in a material form which in this instance could include texted choreography and video recordings so as to show where the dance originates from.
Latest News
National Minimum Wage Bill tabled in Parliament
By Jacques van Wyk, Director and Chelsea Roux, Candidate Attorney The Portfolio Committee on Labour met in January 2019 to [...]
Directors’ liability and the competition commission’s corporate leniency policy for cartel contraventions
The Corporate Leniency Policy ("CLP") was published by the Competition Commission in 2004 and remains the principal tool employed by [...]
Trade Marks: USA and Consent Agreements
Anyone who has a commercial presence in the USA or intends entering the US market will know that the United [...]
Employee’s right to privacy
In National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and other v Rafee NO and others (2017) JOL 37705 (LC), the [...]
Don’t be intimidated into relying on a SARS interpretation note
The SARS states, on its website (www.sars.gov.za), that its "Interpretation Notes are intended to provide guidelines to stakeholders (both internal [...]
National minimum wage amendment bill, 2019
By Jacques van Wyk, Director and Unathi Jukuda, Candidate Attorney On 22 February 2019 the Portfolio Committee on Labour published [...]

