{"id":3071,"date":"2024-10-23T16:21:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T16:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/tesla-and-warner-bros-sued-over-ai-image-justia-news-october-23-2024\/"},"modified":"2024-10-23T16:21:13","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T16:21:13","slug":"tesla-and-warner-bros-sued-over-ai-image-justia-news-october-23-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/tesla-and-warner-bros-sued-over-ai-image-justia-news-october-23-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Tesla and Warner Bros Sued Over AI Image \u2014 Justia News \u2014 October 23, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<p>Alcon Entertainment, LLC filed a lawsuit against Tesla, Inc. and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, on Monday, October 1, 2024, concerning an AI-generated fake image used to promote Tesla\u2019s new fully autonomous cybercab.<\/p>\n<p>Alcon is an independent movie and television studio. The studio produced the movie Blade Runner 2049 and owns the related copyright, trademarks, and brand. Blade Runner 2049 was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. Warner Bros. distributed the Blade Runner 2049 movie on behalf of Alcon.<\/p>\n<p>Alcon\u2019s complaint alleges that Tesla and Warner Bros. requested permission to use a still image from the movie to promote Tesla\u2019s cybercab at its October 10, 2024 event. Alcon denied this request \u201cand adamantly objected to Defendants suggesting any affiliation between [the movie] and Tesla, Musk or any Musk-owned company.\u201d The complaint claims that Tesla then fed the image into an AI-driven image generator and instructed the generator to \u201cmake a lightly stylized fake screen still from [Blade Runner 2049].\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This new image was then used in a presentation at Tesla\u2019s event, \u201cdisplaying it full screen on the livestream feed for 11 seconds.\u201d The complaint goes on to state that \u201cMusk tried awkwardly\u201d to explain why he was showing a picture of Blade Runner 2049 when talking about the cybercab. The complaint states that Musk asked the audience to think about the cybercab\u2019s possibilities in contrast with the fictional future of the movie. \u201cBut it all exuded an odor of thinly contrived excuse to link Tesla\u2019s cybercab to strong Hollywood brands at a time when Tesla and Musk are on the outs with Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The complaint claims that the financial impact of the misappropriation is substantial. \u201cAlcon has spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars building the BR2049 brand into the famous mark that it now is.\u201d Previous contracts with automotive brands \u201chave had dollar price tags in the eight figures.\u201d Alcon is currently negotiating with automotive brands for partnerships on future Blade Runner 2049-based content. The misappropriation in question, Alcon alleges, \u201cis likely to cause confusion among Alcon\u2019s potential brand partner customers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Alcon\u2019s complaint continues on to state that \u201c[a]ny prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk\u2019s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.\u201d Alcon did not want to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company for these reasons. Tesla\u2019s livestream of its event \u201cwas re-tweeted or re-posted by Tesla, Musk, X and others thousands of times, with millions of total views.\u201d Alcon claims that this false affiliation amplifies the damage and confusion risks. \u201cThis was and is all highly offensive to Alcon\u2019s right to commercial and cultural self-determination. It was also a massive economic theft.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The complaint claims (1) direct copyright infringement; (2) vicarious copyright infringement; (3) contributory copyright infringement; (4) and false endorsement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Additional Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/media-telecom\/blade-runner-2049-producer-sues-tesla-warner-bros-over-ai-images-2024-10-21\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">\u2018Blade Runner 2049\u2019 producer sues Tesla, Warner Bros over AI images<\/a>, <em>Reuters<\/em> (October 21, 2024)<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/dockets.justia.com\/docket\/california\/cacdce\/2:2024cv09033\/945374\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Alcon Entertainment, LLC v. Tesla, Inc. et<\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/dockets.justia.com\/docket\/california\/cacdce\/2:2024cv09033\/945374\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> al<\/a> (Case No. 2:2024cv09033)<\/p>\n<p>Complaint in <em>Alcon Entertainment, LLC v. Tesla, Inc. et al<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo Credit: <\/strong>Around the World Photos \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>(function(d, s, id) {\n            var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n            if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n            js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n            js.src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.11&appId=1639788792774312&autoLogAppEvents=1\";\n            fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n        }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alcon Entertainment, LLC filed a lawsuit against Tesla, Inc. and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, on Monday, October 1, 2024, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3866,3867,309,310,3685,412,505,592],"class_list":["post-3071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-bros","tag-image","tag-justia","tag-news","tag-october","tag-sued","tag-tesla","tag-warner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}