The choreographer behind *NSYNC‘s famous “Bye Bye Bye” dance is suing Sony Music after it appeared in the Marvel movie Deadpool & Wolverine, claiming the label had no right to sell access to his iconic routine.
Darrin Henson, who won the MTV Video Music Award for best choreography in 2000 for the “Bye Bye Bye” music video, says in his lawsuit that he owns copyrights to the choreography, but that Sony has wrongfully “held themselves out as the owners of the work.”
The dispute was sparked by the 2024 Deadpool movie, in which the title character dances to “Bye Bye Bye” in the opening sequence. The scene was heavily memed on TikTok and other social media platforms, causing a streaming boom for *NSYNC’s track.
As a result, Henson claims that his decades-old dance moves are now “unjustly affiliated with Marvel”— all because Sony granted a license for a piece of intellectual property that it didn’t own.
“The reality is that the work belongs to Henson, and to obtain full acknowledgement of his ownership and a complete transfer of all monies earned by SME and its licensees, the plaintiff must seek declaratory relief from the court,” his lawyers write in their March 27 complaint, which was obtained by Billboard.
Henson says Sony also wrongfully licensed the choreography to Epic Games for use in the video game Fortnite as an “emote” — a move that gamers can purchase as an add-on downloadable content for the game.
The lawsuit claims Henson attempted to resolve the dispute “amicably,” but that Sony has refused to budge. The label allegedly told him that, because it owns the copyrights to the “Bye Bye Bye” music video, it was entitled to license out the use of dance to Marvel Studios and Epic.
A rep for Sony Music declined to comment on Thursday (April 2). Marvel and Epic are not named as defendants in the lawsuit nor accused of any wrongdoing.
Henson’s case is just the latest court fight over choreography. Last year, a dancer who worked with Usher and Jennifer Lopez sued over allegations that Fortnite stole his moves from a recent Rauw Alejandro music video. Before that, the TikTok user who says she created the viral “Apple dance” to a Charli xcx song sued Roblox for selling it.
For years, such cases faced skeptical judges, who questioned whether simple dance moves were even covered by copyright law, which historically covered only more elaborate choreography such as ballets. But in 2023, a federal appeals court issued a first-of-its-kind ruling reviving such a lawsuit against Epic, saying there was “no reason to treat choreography differently” from longer dance routines.
The music video for “Bye Bye Bye,” released in January 2000 as the lead single from the band’s No Strings Attached, is a legendary piece of 2000s pop culture, featuring the boy band members hung from puppeteer’s strings before breaking into dance. The video spent 25 consecutive days at No. 1 on MTV’s then-ubiquitous Total Request Live countdown, and was ranked at No. 21 on Billboard’s 100 Greatest Music Videos of the 21st Century.
In his lawsuit, Henson says he was recruited by the band’s manager to create the sequence for the group in October 1999. And when he did so, he says he never signed any kind of agreement handing over the rights to anyone.
“Henson did not sign a work made for hire agreement prior to the creation of the work, and as such by its creation alone, became the sole owner of the work,” his lawyers write. “To date, he has not transferred said ownership to any third party.”
