Blade Runner 2049 producers are suing Elon Musk over Robotaxi photos

The Hollywood company behind “Blade Runner 2049” sued Elon Musk for copyright infringement on Monday, accusing him of illegally using images from that film to promote Tesla’s new “robot taxi.”

Alcon Entertainment, a film and television company backed by FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The complaint also names Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery as defendants, saying Alcon rejected a request from Mr. Musk and the companies to use images from “Blade Runner 2049” as part of an Oct. 10 marketing event on the Warner set.

“He did it anyway,” the suit says.

Musk’s live-streamed presentation — a big reveal of a car that Tesla says will be able to drive itself — did not use accurate images of “Blade Runner 2049,” according to the complaint. The event instead displayed “AI-generated images mirroring scenes from Blade Runner 2049, including one resembling Ryan Gosling,” Alkon said.

The lawsuit called the use of artificial intelligence tools to create near-identical images a “bad faith and intentionally malicious maneuver” to make the event “more attractive to a global audience and to misappropriate the ‘Blade Runner 2049’ trademark to help sell Tesla vehicles.” “.

Mr. Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery could not immediately be reached for comment.

As Alkon described it, this episode is very similar to an episode earlier this year that featured actress Scarlett Johansson and artificial intelligence startup OpenAI. Days before showcasing a new virtual assistant, OpenAI asked Ms. Johansson to license her voice to it. I refused.

Despite her refusal, OpenAI used a voice called “Sky” that sounded “eerily similar to my voice,” Ms. Johansson said at the time, noting that she had hired a lawyer. OpenAI denied that it intended to imitate her voice, but withdrew “Sky” as a voice option, saying in a blog post that “AI voices should not intentionally mimic a celebrity’s distinctive voice.”

“Blade Runner 2049” sequel was financed and produced by Alcon and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. Released in 2017. The film stars Mr. Gosling as a bio-engineered human living in a post-apocalyptic America, and prominently features a fully autonomous, artificially intelligent car.

Alkon refused a request to allow Mr. Musk to use images from the film because of his “highly politicized, volatile, and abusive behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech,” according to the complaint. Alcon also said it was in talks with other car brands for partnerships on an upcoming Amazon TV series called “Blade Runner 2099,” and did not want to derail those negotiations.

Now, Alcon said in her lawsuit, “the false association between Blade Runner 2049 and Tesla has become irreparably entangled in the fabric of the world’s media, as all Defendants knew it would inevitably happen.”