‘Blade Runner' Suit Against Tesla And Warner Bros. Can Proceed, Federal Judge Rules, But Defendants Succeed In Narrowing Scope
A lawsuit by Blade Runner 2049 production company Alcon Entertainment against Tesla and Warner Bros. over the use of images from the film at a promotional event can proceed, a federal judge has ruled.
The scope of the complaint, however, was narrowed in a ruling late Monday by Judge George Wu in the U.S. District Court of Central California. (Read the ruling HERE.) Wu sided with the defendants by dismissing several of Alcon's claims and ordering the narrower complaint to go to mediation. Still pending are Alcon's charge of copyright infringement, which stems from the use of images from the sci-fi sequel starring Ryan Gosling to train AI tools involved in generating materials for Tesla.
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Alcon sued Warner Bros. and Tesla last October after the automaker's 'We Robot' event on the Warner lot in Burbank, insisting that the companies had ignored its refusal of a request to incorporate the film's visuals.
Blade Runner 2049, the 2017 sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic, was distributed by Warner Bros.
Alcon maintains that it refused a request from the studio to use images from the film. Attorneys for the company said executives had made it clear that 'under no circumstances' could there by 'any affiliation' between the film and the Elon Musk-run automaker. The crux of the production firm's objection was Musk's 'massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech.'
Despite that directive, an 11-second slide appeared during Tesla's presentation, with Musk specifically alluding to the sci-fi property in a voiceover.
Tesla and Warner Bros. have insisted, as Wu noted in his ruling, that Alcon 'cannot show substantial similarity between its copyrighted work and the 'We Robot' presentation or the 11-second slide used therein.'
Wu noted that the request for permission was made on the same day as the Tesla event, giving Alcon little time to respond.
'Given the tight timeframe Musk and Tesla were working with in light of their last-minute request – and the resulting last-minute denial – to make use of BR2049, it is not at all implausible for plaintiff to allege on information and belief that they made use of an AI image-generator to come up with the finishedproduct,' Wu wrote. 'In addition, the images are not so different that the Court can conclude Tesla and Musk could not possibly have literally copied in the manner so-alleged. Thus, each of Tesla's and Musk's timely-raised limited arguments regarding the 'literal copying' theory fail.'
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