- Alcon Entertainment sued Elon Musk for “copyright infringement and false endorsement”.
- The “Blade Runner 2049” producer denied Musk permission to use stills from the film in his event.
- The company also accuses Warner Bros. Discovery of hosting the Tesla event on its premises.
Elon Musk is once again in legal hot water, this time facing allegations of using copyrighted imagery to create a Blade Runner-inspired AI-generated visual for the Tesla Cybercab presentation event. The claim? Musk’s penchant for associating his autonomous EV ventures with the dystopian cinematic universe of Blade Runner might have gone a bit too far.
On Monday, Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind Blade Runner 2049, filed a lawsuit in a California federal court. The suit accuses Musk of copyright infringement and false endorsement. Warner Bros. Discovery, Tesla’s host for the event, also finds itself in the crosshairs, culpable for letting Musk’s event happen on their premises without securing the necessary rights.
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The legal dispute centers on an AI-generated image depicting a post-apocalyptic landscape, influenced by the yellow-hued, smog-filled setting of Blade Runner 2049. Musk displayed the photo during his speech at Tesla’s “We, Robot” event, making a playful nod to Denis Villeneuve’s film: “You know, I love Blade Runner, but I don’t know if we want that future. I believe we want that duster he’s wearing, but not the, uh, not the bleak apocalypse.”
Aclon Entertainment claims that the image was “clearly intended to read visually” as a still from “Blade Runner 2049”, showing Officer K (portrayed by actor Ryan Gosling) exploring Las Vegas. The company claims they denied an urgent request for licensing rights, assuming Elon Musk resorted to the solution of an AI-generated image.
Elon Musk (above), and the disputed AI-generated image (below) shown during Tesla’s “We, Robot” event.
Screenshots: Tesla / YouTube
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the company doesn’t want the film to be affiliated with Musk, and prompts others to do the same: “Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account”.
The suit also drags Warner Bros. Discovery into the fray, accusing the entertainment giant of leasing their property to Tesla and allowing their resources—like studio space and video screens—to be used for the event, all without Alcon’s knowledge. Despite Warner having limited licensing rights to the film, Alcon argues that they were left in the dark until the event was already underway.
“All of the Defendants participated in its creation, and in its display in the presentation at the event, from a WBDI-owned building and studio lot, on WBDI-owned video screens and otherwise using WBDI-owned technology infrastructure, operated by or in conjunction with Tesla employees, all acting in whole or in part subject to the direction and control of Musk.”
The company now seeks unspecified damages, along with a court order to prevent Tesla from further distributing the contentious promotional material.
This isn’t Musk’s first brush with sci-fi-related legal drama. Earlier this month, I, Robot director Alex Proyas publicly accused Musk of copying the design of movie prop vehicles for the Tesla Cybercab and Robovan. This complaint hasn’t escalated into a lawsuit, despite the obvious references of Tesla’s “We, Robot” event to the 2004 film starring Will Smith.