Elon Musk. Image: Daniel Oberhaus (2018) via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Alcon Entertainment said Musk used AI to affiliate the movie’s brand with Tesla in an ‘intentionally malicious gambit’.
The production company behind the Blade Runner 2049 film has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros Discovery for alleged copyright infringement using AI.
Alcon Entertainment claims that the defendants requested permission to use “an iconic still image” from the movie to promote Tesla’s new autonomous ‘Cybercab’ at its livestreamed event in October, but permission was not granted.
The company alleges that the defendant then “used an apparently AI-generated faked image to do it all anyway”.
“Alcon did not want BR2049 to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla or any Musk company,” the filing said. “Now BR2049 unfortunately and falsely is so affiliated … the false affiliation between BR2049 and Tesla is irreparably entangled in the global media tapestry, all as defendants knew would inevitably happen, and amplifying the damage and confusion risks.”
Musk unveiled Tesla’s new robotaxi at its ‘We, Robot’ presentation held at the Warner Bros film lot in California on 10 October. The event was livestreamed internationally and included an image of a man in a long coat standing in a dusty, post-apocalyptic city landscape.
While the image is not taken directly from the Blade Runner 2049 film, Musk did mention the Blade Runner franchise by name during the presentation.
In its suit, Alcon Entertainment said the image used was “a bad faith and intentionally malicious gambit”, especially when permission to use the image was requested and refused.
“It was hardly coincidental that the only specific Hollywood film which Musk actually discussed to pitch his new, fully autonomous, AI-driven cybercab was BR2049 – a film which just happens to feature a strikingly-designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car throughout the story,” the suit said.
The suit follows several other high-profile incidents where AI was used without permission. In May of this year, OpenAI landed in hot water when its voice feature appeared to mimic Scarlett Johansson’s voice after the actress had refused permission to use her voice.
And in August, US presidential candidate Donald Trump shared multiple fake images on Truth Social, including one of Taylor Swift with the caption ‘Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump’. This prompted the singer to publicly state her plans to endorse Kamala Harris for the US presidential election.
Elon Musk. Image: Daniel Oberhaus (2018) via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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