{"id":146888,"date":"2025-09-16T00:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T00:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/146888\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T00:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T00:38:07","slug":"the-tesla-blade-runner-2049-ai-lawsuit-just-hit-an-interesting-snag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/146888\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tesla ‘Blade Runner 2049’ AI Lawsuit Just Hit an Interesting Snag"},"content":{"rendered":"

In April<\/a>, movement on a 2024 lawsuit involving AI, Tesla, Warner Bros., and the production company behind Blade Runner 2049<\/a> caught the attention of sci-fi fans. Today, there\u2019s an update that skews in favor of Warner Bros.<\/p>\n

Alcon Entertainment, which produced the 2017 Denis Villeneuve film and has the Prime Video Blade Runner 2099<\/a> series on the way, alleged that promotional material used at an October 2024 Tesla event<\/a> very closely resembled stills from that film.<\/p>\n

Those concerns were further heightened by the fact that Alcon had asked Warner Bros., which distributes its films and was partnering with Tesla for a \u201crobotaxi\u201d or \u201cCybercab\u201d unveiling<\/a>, not to allow the use of Blade Runner 2049 imagery as part of the event.<\/p>\n

The ensuing lawsuit alleges that Tesla circumvented that request by feeding Blade Runner 2049 stills into an AI image generator, and that\u2019s what was eventually used to backdrop the Tesla presentation.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit touches on several complicated issues, including, as the Hollywood Reporter<\/a> points out, \u201cwhether the creation of a visual by an AI image generator by copying a portion of a copyrighted work without a license constitutes copyright infringement.\u201d That\u2019s one of the as-yet undecided issues in the ongoing proceedings.<\/p>\n

As THR reports, now dismissed are \u201cclaims seeking to hold Warner Bros. Discovery responsible for Tesla\u2019s use of the photos\u201d as well as \u201canother claim alleging that Warner Bros. Discovery had a duty to stop Tesla from infringing Alcon\u2019s intellectual property.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, \u201cWarner Bros. Discovery still faces a claim for contributory infringement, which accuses the studio of facilitating the alleged misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can read more about the lawsuit in THR<\/a>; the complexities of this specific case, however, are coming at a time when Hollywood is facing issues centered on AI\u2019s encroachment of intellectual property on an unprecedented scale.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, we learned that Warner Bros. joined Disney and Universal in filing a lawsuit against Midjourney; as Variety reported<\/a>, the allegations accuse \u201cthe AI image-generating platform of blatant copyright violations\u201d involving copyrighted WB characters.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know yet how Alcon, which (per THR) has one more try to \u201cfix claims for direct and vicarious copyright infringement,\u201d will ultimately fare in its legal fight. But even if Warner Bros. ends up overcoming the remaining claims in this case, it seems the studio has now taken new interest in protecting its library from copyright infringement with generative AI elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In April, movement on a 2024 lawsuit involving AI, Tesla, Warner Bros., and the production company behind Blade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[78361,54072,49,48,75,337,5028,4432],"class_list":{"0":"post-146888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-alcon-entertainment","9":"tag-blade-runner-2049","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-tesla","15":"tag-warner-bros"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}