Epic forced to remove fan-created content from Fortnite after players discovered the scene of a hanging

Epic Games has removed a fan-made environment from Fortnite after players noticed the map included the scene of a suicide.

Fortnite’s The Block rotates a limited number of fan-made environments, including one of an overgrown abandoned mansion. Within it is a room with a rope hanging from the rafters and a chair lying on its side. While the scene doesn’t include anything graphically inappropriate, the rope and kicked-over chair, however, intimate it’s where a suicide took place.

“Epic should really check the map before putting it on the block, someone [hung] themselves here,” req-q said in a thread on the Fortnite reddit (thanks, Polygon).

“The chair was supposed to hang on the rope, but it fell down,” creator FuryLeaks told Polygon. “I made a joke on a little cinematic with someone hanging their self… but… yeah. Actually it wasn’t supposed to look like that.” They also told Polygon the house was supposedly depicting the aftermath of an earthquake.

However, a tour of the map shown by FuryLeaks a few days before the area went live shows the room, complete with a hanging body:

Short tour on my The block map for next week pic.twitter.com/KaEqpBnttJ

— Fury  – BACK IN THE GAME (@FuryLeaks) March 28, 2019

“This creator’s content was removed from the Block because it did not adhere to our content creation guidelines,” a representative for Epic Games told Polygon. It has since replaced FuryLeak’s block with a prior one, Tropical Treetops.

In other Fortnite news, the US Supreme Court recently ruled that plaintiffs suing for copyright infringement – such as the numerous artists suing Epic for using their dances in Fortnite – cannot file for damages if their work has not been registered with the US Copyright Office.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air actor Alfonso Ribeiro and Rapper 2 Milly recently filed lawsuits against Epic Games for replicating and selling their dance moves in Fortnite. 2 Milly said Epic “took his craft and sold it as their own”, and while he’s “not trying to ruin the game for anyone”, he wants the “Swipe It” dance removed and fair compensation. In a motion to dismiss the suit by 2 Milly, Epic’s attorney Dale Cendali maintains dance moves cannot be “owned” as there’s no precedent case law a copyrighting choreography, and patents for individual dance moves cannot be made to the US Copyright Office due to creative choreographic expression.

Now, further to a recent US ruling, Ribeiro and 2 Milly – as well as Orange Shirt Kid and The Backpack Kid – have now all voluntarily dropped their lawsuits. The law firm that represents them, however, says it is a “purely procedural” matter and that all suits will be re-filed once the plaintiffs have completed their Copyright Office registrations. “We will continue to vigorously fight for our clients’ rights against those who wrongly take their creations without permission and without compensation,” attorney David Hecht said.