Last week, Elon Musk unveiled his robotaxis at a Tesla Cybercab event on a Hollywood movie lot that was full of theatrical flourishes meant to evoke a neon-powered sci-fi future. A new lawsuit filed on Monday now accuses the tech billionaire of using AI for generation Blade Runner 2049 style images after one of the companies behind the film had already rejected Musk’s request for official licensing.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on behalf of Alcon Entertainment, which contributed financing Blade Runner 2049, The New York Times Reports. It targets both Tesla and Warner Bros. as defendants, alleging that the former used AI-generated images Blade Runner 2049 to violate Alcon Entertainment’s copyright. It essentially argues that Musk tried to “abuse this.” Blade Runner 2049 Brand to help sell Teslas.”
The Denis Villeneuve-directed sequel to Harrison Ford’s original starred Ryan Gosling and used bold colors and futuristic panoramic views to depict a gritty cyberpunk dystopia in which both humans and machines suffer from corporate exploitation and spiritual malaise. But Gosling and the film did it into a cool mysticism alongside the technological fear.
Musk’s allegedly infringing images were part of it “We, Robots” Tesla Cybercab Event Oct. 10 took place at the Warner lot, where the company unveiled new autonomous cars that it claims could be ferrying passengers around Los Angeles by the end of the decade. The company also introduced its Optimus robots at the event, which once manufactured can perform various household tasks for $20,000 to $30,000 apiece.
At the start of the event, Musk used the image of a man in a trench coat looking out at a blurry, yellow-orange, desolate city skyline, with the words “not that” in the corner, to illustrate a future dystopia that his products are reminiscent of are intended to be avoided. “I love Blade Runnerbut I don’t know if we want that future,” Tesla’s CEO said during the event, directly referring to the franchise. “I think we want the dust coat he wears, but not the, uh, not the grim apocalypse.”
In its lawsuit, Alcon claims that the still image was clearly interpreted as a reference to the 2017 sequel and, in addition to violating its copyright, also links the two trademarks in a way that the Hollywood company intentionally wanted to avoid. Alcon said it wanted to avoid any association with Musk’s “massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes culminates in hate speech” and also did not want to jeopardize potential brand deals with other automakers ahead of an upcoming automaker’s launch Blade Runner 2099 TV show on Amazon Prime. Despite rejecting Musk’s request to use it Blade Runner 2049 In his presentation, the lawsuit states, “He did it anyway.”
While Musk was once best known for his electric cars, in recent years he has made headlines much more often with inflammatory comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, which he bought in 2022. When he’s not touting or playing up SpaceX’s successful rocket recoveries Diablo IVHe is campaigning for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Over the weekend, Musk claimed he would give Every registered voter in Pennsylvania receives $100 for signing a petition as part of a marketing campaign for the recently convicted Republican candidate.
Update 10/23/2024 4:41 p.m. ET: Musk commented on the lawsuit this week, but not on its merits. “That movie sucked,” he said tweeted in response to a post about the Blade Runner 2049 allegations.
