Tesla and Warner Bros. manage to avoid certain allegations in the lawsuit over ‘Blade Runner 2049,’ while the copyright dispute persists.

      Tesla and Warner Bros. achieved a partial legal win when a federal judge dismissed several claims in a lawsuit initiated by Alcon Entertainment, the production company behind the 2017 sci-fi film Blade Runner 2049, according to Reuters. The lawsuit alleged that both companies used imagery from the film to advertise Tesla’s autonomous Cybercab vehicle during an event held by Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) Studios in Hollywood last October.

      U.S. District Judge George Wu expressed a tendency to dismiss Alcon’s claims that Tesla and Warner Bros. infringed on trademark law, as reported by Reuters. The judge remarked that Musk merely mentioned the original Blade Runner film during the event and emphasized that Tesla and Alcon are not competitors. “Tesla and Musk are looking to sell cars,” Wu noted. “The plaintiff is clearly not in that line of business.”

      Wu also dismissed most of Alcon’s assertions against Warner Bros., the distributor of the Blade Runner franchise. However, he permitted Alcon to pursue its copyright infringement claims against Tesla for allegedly using AI-generated images that mimic scenes from Blade Runner 2049 without authorization.

      Alcon stated that just hours before the Cybercab event, it declined a request from Tesla and WBD to use “an iconic still image” from the film. In the lawsuit, Alcon justified its decision by stating that any rational brand considering a partnership with Tesla must consider Musk’s unpredictable and highly politicized behavior, which sometimes approaches hate speech. Alcon further expressed that it did not wish for Blade Runner 2049 to be associated with Musk, Tesla, or any of Musk's companies for these reasons.

      Despite this, Alcon claimed that Tesla proceeded to use images from Blade Runner 2049 in an AI image generator, creating a still image that was displayed for 10 seconds during the Cybercab event. With that image in the background, Musk made a direct reference to Blade Runner. Alcon also argued that Musk's mention of Blade Runner 2049 was intentional, as the film features a “strikingly designed, artificially intelligent, fully autonomous car.”

      Nick Godt has reported on global business news across three continents for over 25 years.

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