Elon Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery have been accused of violating the copyright of the film Blade Runner 2049 during an event where Tesla promoted its robotaxis.
The 2017 dystopian film’s producer, Alcon Entertainment, claimed in an Oct. 21 suit in a Los Angeles federal court that Tesla, Musk and Warner Bros. first sought permission to use a still image from the film, which it denied.
Tesla wanted the image to hock its “Cybercab” — a fully autonomous car that will operate as a taxi — in an Oct. 10 event hosted at Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank. Alcon said it knocked back the request as it wanted to distance the film from “Musk’s extreme political and social views.”
But it alleged the trio “then used an apparently AI-generated faked image to do it all anyway.”
It’s the latest legal dispute over AI imagery and the copyright-infringing material that AI firms have been allegedly using to train their models.
It claimed the “lightly stylized fake screen still” from its movie — depicting a man in a coat gazing at a ruined city — was shown in Musk’s presentation at the event for 11 seconds.
A still from Musk’s presentation (bottom) that allegedly copied Blade Runner 2049 (top). Source: Warner Bros/Tesla
“During those 11 seconds, Musk tried awkwardly to explain why he was showing the audience a picture of [Blade Runner 2049] when he was supposed to be talking about his new product,” Alcon wrote in its complaint.
“He really had no credible reason.”
In its claims against Warner Bros. Discovery, Alcon said the firm has “some limited and ongoing” rights to Blade Runner 2049 but “not at all for a livestream television feed.”
Alcon claimed the use of the AI image was “a massive economic theft,” and the market value of the brand affiliation is “at least in the six figures and possibly much higher,” but didn’t specify how much it was seeking in damages.
Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Alcon also alleged using the image “muddied the waters” for car brand partnerships it’s exploring for an upcoming Blade Runner TV series and took issue that the film might now be linked with “the problematic Musk himself.”
“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,” Alcon said in the complaint.
Musk has recently become an outspoken advocate of — and has appeared at rallies for — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Others have accused Musk of allowing misinformation to spread on X, while he’s also accused of peddling conspiracy theories and making incendiary comments on his platform.
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“If, as here, a company or its principals do not actually agree with Musk’s extreme political and social views, then a potential brand affiliation with Tesla is even more issue-fraught,” it added.
“Alcon did not want [Blade Runner 2049] to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company, for all of these reasons.”
Alcon speculated that the agreement between Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery — which it hasn’t been made privy to — included an element requiring Tesla to affiliate its Cybercab with Warner Bros. films.
At Tesla’s event, Musk promised that the Cybercab would be available “before 2027” and cost under $30,000.
He’s promised for years that Tesla would make a car that could drive on its own, but none of the car maker’s vehicles can operate without a human present.
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