Elon Musk's Tesla is being sued by producers of 'Blade Runner 2049' over alleged copyright infringement

Tech billionaire Elon Musk is being sued by the producers of the Hollywood movie Blade Runner 2049 over alleged copyright infringement.

During an event earlier this month, Tesla owner Musk unveiled a new robot, Optimus, as well as the tech company’s Cybercab robotaxi vehicle, prompting accusations from I, Robot director Alex Proyas that Musk had copied his designs.

Now the businessman is facing legal action after Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind the film Blade Runner 2049, filed a lawsuit against Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk, as well as Warner Bros. Discovery.

The suit accuses Tesla of feeding images from the film into an AI image generator to create unlicensed promotional materials.

Blade Runner 2049 was a 2017 sci-fi action movie starring Hollywood big hitters such as Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas and Jared Leto.

Filed on Monday (21 October) in Los Angeles, Alcon’s lawsuit insisted, per Variety, that the movie, and its stars, have no affiliation with “Tesla, X, Musk or any Musk-owned company,” given “Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech”.

The company accused the named parties of direct copyright infringement, vicarious copyright infringement, contributory copyright infringement and false endorsement.

Alcon Entertainment is seeking an injunction blocking Musk, Tesla, Warner Bros. Discovery and “anyone working in concert with them from further copying, displaying, distributing, selling or offering to sell ‘BR2049’ or protectible elements thereof in connection with Tesla or Musk, or making derivative works thereof for such purposes”.

The suit read: “Alcon has spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars building the ‘BR2049’ brand into the famous mark that it now is. Prior actual ‘BR2049’ contracts linking automotive brands to the Picture have had dollar price tags in the eight figures.”

It claimed that the “financial magnitude of the misappropriation here was substantial” and the company is seeking monetary damages.

indy100 has contacted representatives for Tesla, Musk and Warner Bros. Discovery for comment.