Tesla presentation of the Robotaxi: Lawsuit for reference to Blade Runner 2049
When presenting two autonomous Tesla vehicles, Elon Musk referred to "Blade Runner 2049" – using AI. A production company is taking action against this.
(Image: BoJack/Shutterstock.com)
A production company of the film "Blade Runner 2049" has filed a lawsuit against Tesla in the USA, accusing Elon Musk of infringing copyrights at the event to present the Robotaxi. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Alcon Entertainment claims that Tesla relied on AI technology. The electric car manufacturer had trained it with images from the film and then generated unlicensed recordings using visual language.
Warner Bros. Discovery is partly to blame because this was made possible by the cooperation. Any partnership with Tesla would have to take into account "Musk's massively amplified, highly politicized, petulant and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes degenerates into hate speech," the newspaper adds. An association with him would harm the business.
Image rights first requested
In the complaint, Alcon refers to an event organized by Tesla just over two weeks ago. Company boss Elon Musk personally announced an autonomous coupé and an autonomous bus at the Warner Bros. film studios in Burbank, California. The visual language of the event repeatedly referred to the science fiction film.
One part "was clearly meant to be read visually" like a shot from "Blade Runner 2049". This was done despite the clear refusal to grant the image rights for it. At one point, Musk even explicitly referred to the movie. According to Alcon, Tesla asked shortly beforehand whether the image rights could be granted and only resorted to AI technology after the refusal.
For Tesla and Elon Musk, the accusation of copyright infringement is not the only one in relation to the event. A week ago, the director and production designer of the film "I, Robot" placed footage next to each other to show that it was clearly referenced. Unlike Alcon, however, they have left it at that and are not going to court. Tesla's robots, which were presented at the event and appeared all too human, were also received less with criticism than with amusement. As it turned out later, they were all remote-controlled. In all of this, the fact that there are once again considerable doubts about Musk's timetable for the vehicles presented was somewhat overlooked.
(mho)