‘Blade Runner 2049’ studio sues Elon Musk for copyright infringement over AI footage

Alcon Entertainment is suing Elon Musk’s Tesla for copyright infringement, claiming the automaker used footage from the 2017 sci-fi film “Blade Runner 2049” without permission from the production company

According to the lawsuit, filed today in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, California, Alcon alleges that Tesla used those images to generate new images for the unveiling of its autonomous Cybercab earlier this month.

A day before the Cybercab event, Telsa and Warner Bros. Discovery, which released the Blade Runner sequel and was hosting the event on its Burbank lot, asked Alcon Entertainment for permission to use footage from the film. Alcon refused to cooperate over concerns about being associated with Musk, whom they described as “problematic,” Tesla or any of his other companies.

“Any prudent brand considering any association with Tesla must take into account Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which at times veers into hate speech,” the lawyers wrote in the your complaint

However, after Alcon refused to allow images from Blade Runner 2049 to be used for the October 10 event, AI image generators were used to create similar images for the event , say Alcon’s lawyers. (Warner Bros. Discovery was also named as a defendant in Alcon’s suit.)

During the live event at X, Musk made references to Blade Runner, stating that Tesla envisions an exciting future for transportation, in contrast to the bleak, dystopian visions depicted in science fiction such as the Bladerunner series. “I love Blade Runner, but I don’t know if we want that future,” he said. “I think we want the feather it carries, but not the bleak apocalypse.”

This did not sit well with Alcon.

“It was no coincidence that the only specific Hollywood movie that Musk actually talked about to introduce his new fully autonomous, AI-powered cybercab was BR2049, a movie that only features a self-driving, artificially intelligent car ·smart and amazingly designed throughout the world’s history,” the studio’s lawyers said in their filing today.

A vocal supporter of former US President Donald Trump, Musk has campaigned heavily for the Republican nominee, appearing in public at rallies and inundating users on his social network, X, with his pro-Trump tweets. Last month, Trump even suggested that Musk would have a place in his administration cleaning up bureaucratic inefficiencies.

Alcon is seeking unspecified damages, arguing that the misuse of copyrighted material has financially harmed its ongoing negotiations and put future Blade Runner projects at risk, including automotive partnerships and a television series .

“The false affiliation between BR2049 and Tesla is irreparably entangled in the global media tapestry,” said Alcon Entertainment. “If, as here, a company or its directors disagree with Musk’s extreme political and social views, then a potential brand affiliation with Tesla is even more problematic.”