Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY/Imagn/Warner Bros.
A judge has allowed a lawsuit brought against Tesla by the producers of Blade Runner 2049 to go forward. Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. are suing Tesla for using visuals from the film in a presentation despite being told not due.
Blade Runner 2049, directed by acclaimed Dune filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, is a sequel to Ridley Scott’s seminal 1982 sci-fi film Blade Runner. Both films are considered to be formative in the science-fiction genre for their seemingly-prescient aesthetics.
Clearly a fan of the film, Elon Musk and Tesla used materials from Blade Runner 2049 during the company’s “We Robot” presentation despite being warned not to. Lawyers for the companies say that they did not want to be associated with Musk’s “massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech.”
“Alcon sued Warner Bros and Tesla last October after the automaker’s We Robot event on the Warners lot in Burbank, insisting that the companies had ignored its refusal of a request to incorporate the film’s visuals. Alcon maintains that it refused a request from the studio to use images from the film.”
“Attorneys for the company said executives had made it clear that ‘under no circumstances’ could there by ‘any affiliation’ between the film and the Elon Musk-run automaker. The crux of the production firm’s objection was Musk’s ‘massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech.’ Despite that directive, an 11-second slide appeared during Tesla’s presentation, with Musk specifically alluding to the sci-fi property in a voice-over.” [via Deadline]
While Tesla is now being sued for copyright infringement, “the scope of the complaint was narrowed in a ruling by Judge George Wu in the U.S. District Court of Central California, siding with the defendants by dismissing several of Alcon’s claims and ordering the narrower complaint to go to mediation.”
Over the last few months, amidst growing resentment towards Musk and a tumbling economgy, Tesla stock has lost nearly half of its value since the post-election high in December.
Content shared from brobible.com.