A US federal court has partially dismissed a lawsuit by Alcon Entertainment, which accused Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery of using footage from the film Blade Runner 2049 to promote Tesla, The Hollywood Reporter reports.
This is about the presentation of the Tesla Cybercab robotaxi in 2024, where Elon Musk showed an image of a man in a cloak among ruins in an orange fog — visually similar to a scene from a movie.
Alcon claimed that WB provided Tesla with high-quality footage as a reference for the AI, after which similar footage was generated, but Judge George Wu noted that these claims were "not supported by the evidence." The court also rejected the charge that Warner Bros. had a duty to stop Tesla from potentially infringing on copyright. The court emphasized: "Allowing Musk and Tesla to select content from the library does not mean that Warner had the right to control or restrict their actions."
The case is not over yet, however. The court noted "several similarities" between the company's promotional materials and the original footage from the film. Warner Bros. Discovery remains a defendant on charges of aiding and abetting infringement.
Alcon will have another chance to refine its lawsuit and clarify its claims of direct and indirect copyright infringement. The company is also involved in the creation of the upcoming Blade Runner 2099 series for Prime Video, so the producers are trying to distance the brand from Tesla and Elon Musk as much as possible.