Blade Runner 2049 production company Alcon Entertainment is suing Elon Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery for allegedly using AI-generated images of scenes from the film for the launch of the electric vehicle company’s latest self-driving Robotaxi.
In this copyright infringement case, Alcon filed the lawsuit earlier this week insisting that the film, which starred Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, had no affiliation of any kind with “Tesla, X, Musk or any Musk-owned company” since “Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech. Alcon names Musk, Tesla and WBD, accusing all parties of direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement and contributory copyright infringement, and false endorsement. The company is seeking an injunction to block the parties and “anyone working in concert with them from further copying, displaying, distributing, selling or offering to sell ‘BR2049’ or protectible elements thereof in connection with Tesla or Musk, or making derivative works thereof for such purposes.” Alcon is also seeking monetary damages.
The lawsuit states, “The financial magnitude of the misappropriation here was substantial. Alcon has spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars building the ‘BR2049’ brand into the famous mark that it now is. Prior actual ‘BR2049’ contracts linking automotive brands to the Picture have had dollar price tags in the eight figures.” At the time, Tesla, Musk nor Warner Bros. Discovery has responded.
