Tesla, AI, and Blade Runner: Unpacking the Copyright Lawsuit Drama
So, there's this whole legal battle brewing involving Tesla, Warner Bros., and the makers of Blade Runner 2049, Alcon Entertainment. It all kicked off because Alcon felt that Tesla's promotional materials for an event looked suspiciously like stills from their movie. Apparently, Alcon wasn't too thrilled about the idea of their Blade Runner visuals being used, especially since they'd asked Warner Bros. (who distributes their films) to keep them out of Tesla's presentation.
The core of the issue? Alcon suspects Tesla might have fed Blade Runner 2049 images into an AI image generator and then used the output as a backdrop. That's a big no-no if you're playing with copyrighted material. This whole thing brings up some interesting questions about AI and copyright – like, if an AI copies parts of a copyrighted work, is that infringement? It's a legal gray area that hasn't been fully sorted out yet. I think it's a very relevant point, since its becoming more common for artists to have their art as dataset to train AI models. However, i consider that it is still needed more regulation on this field.
Initially, Alcon tried to hold Warner Bros. accountable, arguing they should have stopped Tesla. However, the court tossed out those claims, but Warner Bros. isn't completely off the hook. They're still facing a claim of contributory infringement, which basically means they're accused of helping Tesla do the alleged wrong thing. It seems that the court understood that it was not Warner's obligation to stop Tesla.
This case is unfolding at a time when Hollywood's grappling with the rise of AI and its impact on intellectual property. Warner Bros. also joined Disney and Universal in suing Midjourney, an AI image generator, for allegedly violating their copyrights by using their characters. It seems like, even if Warner Bros. dodges the remaining claims in the Tesla case, they are now very interested in fighting copyright infringement.
Source: Gizmodo