District Judge Paul Grimm in Maryland ruled Friday that the Copyright Act preempts claims that Jared Nickens and Jaylen Brantley filed in February 2019 against Epic Games Inc., creator of the wildly popular online shooting game.

Their copyright infringement lawsuit claimed the "Running Man" emote -- a celebratory dance in Fortnite -- that players can purchase for their characters is identical to the dance that Nickens and Brantley took credit for creating.

"And here Plaintiffs claim is based on Epic Games allegedly 'capturing and digitally copying' the Running Man dance to create the Fortnite emote that 'allows the player's avatars to execute the Running Man identically to Plaintiffs' version.

"Plaintiffs seek to place the same square peg into eight round holes in search of a cause of action against Epic Games for its use of the Running Man dance in its game Fortnite.

But Plaintiffs' claims that Epic Games copied the dance do not support any of their theories," the judge wrote.