HomeTechnologyWhy Blade Runner producers are suing Elon Musk

Why Blade Runner producers are suing Elon Musk

Elon Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros. are accused of having reused an image from the movie Blade Runner 2049 in the presentation spot for their cybertaxi.

Last week, Elon Musk unveiled his Cybercab robotaxi during Tesla’s “We Robot” presentation at Warner Bros. Hollywood Studios. On the program: neon lights and downtown sets straight out of a sci-fi movie. And this is precisely what poses a problem to the producer of Blade Runner 2049.

As reported by the LA Times, Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind the film, filed a complaint this Monday, October 21, against Tesla, the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, and Warner Bros. Discovery for copyright infringement.

A previously rejected license

According to the company, the electric vehicle manufacturer copied scenes from Blade Runner 2049 to promote their new robotaxi. Musk would have “thus tried to appropriate and hijack the brand.” Blade Runner 2049 to better sell their Teslas.

According to the complaint, Tesla used artificial intelligence (AI) to generate an image resembling scenes from the movie during the Cybercab launch event at Warner Studios on October 10. In fact, the event would have taken place shortly after Alcon rejected a licensing request from Warner Bros. Discovery will use a still from the film in the Cybercab commercial.

“Alcon rejected all authorizations and categorically opposed the defendants’ suggestion of any affiliation between [‘Blade Runner 2049‘] and Tesla, Musk or any company owned by Musk,” the complaint states. “The defendants then used a fake image, apparently generated by AI, to do all of this anyway.”

“It’s not a coincidence.”

The resemblance between the two images is truly striking. In the allegedly copied photo, Ryan Gosling, dressed in a brown trench coat, exits his vehicle. It crosses an abandoned landscape, which is reduced to the rubble of roads and reddish earth. In the distance towers appear in the middle of a thick orange fog.

In the Cybercab ad, a man dressed in a brown trench coat exactly like Ryan Gosling’s looks out over an abandoned landscape. He appears to be looking at the horizon, where immense buildings rise above a thick orange fog. At the Cybercab launch party, Musk also referenced Blade Runner 2049 when presenting the vehicle.

“It wouldn’t really be a coincidence if the only specific Hollywood movie Elon Musk talked about to show off his new fully autonomous, AI-powered Cybercab was [Blade Runner 2049]we can read in the complaint. “A film that presents a fully autonomous, artificially intelligent car with a surprising design throughout history.”

Alcon, deeply disagreeing with Musk’s “massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary” behavior, is seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. Spokespeople for Warner Bros. Discovery and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment from the LA Times.

The producers of Blade Runner aren’t the only ones who don’t like Elon Musk’s presentation. Shortly after the presentation, the director of the film I, Robot also attacked the billionaire, accusing him of having copied the designs of his work.

Author: Salome Ferraris
Source: BFM TV

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