Elon Musk sued for using AI-generated Blade Runner images during robotaxi event

While it’s unclear whether any of the autonomous vehicles unveiled during Tesla’s “We, Robot” presentation will ever make it to market, one of the manufacturing companies behind Blade Runner 2049 believes that Elon Musk has infringed the copyright on the event and is taking him to court.

Today, Alcon Entertainment is a production company based in Los Angeles Blade Runner 2049 — filed a lawsuit against Tesla, Elon Musk and Warner Bros. Discovery, alleging that an AI image generator was used to create promotional graphics for the We, Robot event that were intended to resemble stills from the 2017 sci-fi film. According to Alcon, which also owns the copyright to Blade Runner 2049WBD and Tesla sent a request to utilize photos from the film on the afternoon of October 10, just hours before the We, Robot demonstration on the Warner Bros. property. in California.

Although WBD holds some licensing rights to Blade Runner 2049since the event was to be broadcast live around the world, permission for the photos had to come directly from Alcon. And when Alcon’s legal and licensing departments were informed of the situation, they sent back a firm denial to interested parties “to ensure there are no errors in the course of the event.”

“Any prudent brand considering a partnership with Tesla must take into account Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which at times escalates into hate speech,” Alcon explains in the lawsuit. “Alcon did not want BR2049 to be associated with Musk, Tesla or any Musk company for all of these reasons.”

However, despite Alcon’s refusal, Tesla allegedly decided to feed the shots Blade Runner 2049 to the AI ​​image generator to create a “lightly stylized fake screen” what was exposed during the We, Robot presentation. During the event, Musk mentioned about Blade Runner franchise by name, describing representations of the future in a science fiction style, and live broadcast cropped to image depicting a man wearing a duster jacket and standing in front of a destructive, apocalyptic cityscape.

In addition to the more solemn copyright infringement, Alcon also claims that it was never privy to any agreements between Tesla and WBD that would have been necessary prior to the We, Robot event. With Tesla being allowed to utilize Warner Bros. lots and equipment, Alcon believes the deal also included a promotional element that “allowed Tesla to clearly associate Cybercab with one or more films” from the studio’s catalog, and perhaps even required it.

Alcona’s lawsuit doesn’t specify exactly how much the company is seeking in damages, but it clearly states that it believes Musk, Tesla and WBD “all understood the unauthorized nature of the image and the improper purpose behind it, and encouraged or otherwise they lent support to the wrong venture.”