The production company behind “Blade Runner 2049” filed a lawsuit Monday against Elon Musk and Tesla, accusing them of copyright infringement while promoting a new self-driving car.
In its lawsuit, Alcon Entertainment says Musk used AI-generated imagery mirroring scenes from its 2017 sci-fi film while presenting Tesla’s new autonomous Robotaxi at a marketing event earlier this month. Producers had denied his request to do so.
“He did it anyway,” the suit alleges, adding that the company denied Musk’s request due to the tech mogul’s “extreme political and social views” that occasionally veer into “hate speech.” Musk enthusiastically endorsed Donald Trump for president, appearing alongside him at a rally earlier this month, and has espoused transphobic views.
If they asked if he can use imagery similar to or from BR2049 then they’re clearly in the wrong, which it sounds like they did. If they just made an ad and it happened to look like it, maybe not.
At the same time, “similar works” are protected and allowed as legal. For instance the 5000 spaghetti westerns that exist, or the entire formula for 80’s slasher films. Or Ants and A Bugs Life, or Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down, or Deep Impact and Armageddon.
So there has to be some sort of line somewhere that’s a cut-off, but it might be hard to find. Musk wanted to use blade runner and was told to fuck off, so he made up his own dystopian Sci fi future scene. He most certainly aimed for the blade runner look, but was it illegal?
That’s true. I guess we have to wait for this to go through court. I would assume if they put Blade Runner in the prompt it could violate the copyright.