Alcon Entertainment, LLC v. Tesla, Inc., et al. is a case from the Central District of California involving fast cars, motion pictures, copyright infringement, and a healthy dose of politics. Elon Musk found himself and his company, Tesla, in the crosshairs of Alcon Media (“Alcon”), which produced the remake of the classic post-apocalyptic film Blade Runner. The new incarnation was called Blade Runner 2049. In a preliminary decision, the Central District of California offered a mixed bag for both parties.
Alcon Media asserted that, at an event held in a movie lot owned by media giant Warner, Warner allowed Musk and Tesla to make a presentation at an event called We Robot at which Musk invoked an image of the world set out in Blade Runner 2049, particularly in connection with driverless cars.
There was no direct reference to the film in the presentation, but there was an 11-second slide showing a post-apocalyptic world with a character in a duster coat looking out over a wasteland that used to be Las Vegas. Plaintiff alleged that the image was a clear reference to the lead character in Blade Runner 2049, the android named K (played by Ryan Gosling), and a setting in the film.
Based on information and belief, plaintiff claimed that defendants only realized they should have requested permission of the owner of Blade Runner 2049 six hours before the event — and received an unequivocal “No,” not just for the We Robot event, but for any and all other events. Plaintiff alleged that Musk and/or Tesla then fed an original scene from the movie into a generative AI tool in order to avoid using the image from the actual film.
In its first amended complaint, plaintiff stated a desire for the film not to be associated with Musk because of his history of “massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech.”
Warner was roped in for contributory infringement because it allegedly allowed or encouraged controlling and supervising conduct by Musk. The court denied the contributory claim, saying that there was no indication that Warner had engaged in “volitional conduct” rather than passively allowing Musk and his crew to do what they wanted. Warner had merely provided the equipment or set on which the other defendants promoted the driverless Tesla. In contrast, the contributory infringement claims against Musk survived.
The plaintiff did not know how the presentation was created, and that probably won’t be known until discovery takes place. But the “information and belief” claims were sufficiently based on defendants’ attempt to get permission to use the film. That is, the plaintiff alleged a factual basis to allege that Musk’s presentation was based on their film, if not generated by AI to make the unauthorized presentation. The complaint survived dismissal.
So another lawsuit, grappling with how generative AI might infringe on copyright, lurches forward into a future, unknown landscape.
