California
‘Blade Runner 2049’ producers sue Elon Musk and Tesla over AI image at event
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A film production company that helped make “Blade Runner 2049” has sued Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk for using an AI-generated image resembling a scene from the science fiction movie to market Tesla’s new robotaxis.
Alcon Entertainment said it refused all permissions but Tesla allegedly used artificial intelligence to “do it all anyway” when the carmaker unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi on Oct. 10 during a live-streamed event at a Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California.
After pulling up to the stage in one of the company’s “Cybercabs,” Musk gave a speech that included a brief reference to the movie franchise. As he spoke, a screen showed an image of a man in a long coat looking over an orange-tinted ruined city.
Alcon claims it resembles a key scene in which star Ryan Gosling arrives in Las Vegas.
“I love Blade Runner, but I don’t know if we want that future,” Musk said. “I think we want that duster he’s wearing, but not the bleak apocalypse.”
A lawsuit filed by Alcon this week in a Southern California federal court alleges that defendants had previously asked permission to use images from the movie but Alcon “refused all permissions and adamantly objected.”
Alcon is also suing Warner Bros, the movie’s distributor that also hosted Musk’s robotaxi event.
Florida
Jury paves the way for 2 Live Crew to retake control of records
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Miami’s 2 Live Crew helped redraw the legal landscape around what hip-hop could be, pushing the boundaries of free speech and taste with their provocative and sexually explicit recordings that led to landmark court decisions protecting the rights of artists.
But for decades the hip-hop legends haven’t had legal control over their iconic discography, after giving up their rights to the records in bankruptcy proceedings that followed their legal fights in the 1990s.
Now a jury verdict is paving the way for surviving members of the group, and heirs of the two who have since died, to retake five of their early albums following a yearslong copyright dispute with a record company. The company is in the process of appealing.
The copyright case was brought by Lil’ Joe Records, which bought the rights to 2 Live Crew’s albums after the group’s record company filed for bankruptcy in 1995.
In 2020, the members of 2 Live Crew and the heirs notified Lil’ Joe that they were terminating its copyrights and that ownership of the albums would revert to the artists. In response, Lil’ Joe sued, arguing that it retained the copyrights under the bankruptcy agreement.
The federal jury in Florida decided in favor of 2 Live Crew and the heirs.
“Our team is proud to have been part of this historic trial,” attorney Scott Burroughs said in a statement. “Our overwhelming and total victory at trial will hopefully serve as a beacon to encourage other artists to brave the legal process to recover their copyrights.”
Richard Wolfe, an attorney representing Lil’ Joe, disputed the group’s claims, saying the terms of the bankruptcy mean his client retains all the rights. He said the battle is not over.
“It’s round two of a 10-round fight,” Wolfe said. “We have always said this case is not going not be decided at the trial court level. It’s going to be decided at the appellate level or possibly the Supreme Court level.”
Among the records at issue is the 1989 release “As Nasty As They Wanna Be”, which includes the tracks “Me So Horny” and “The F— Shop.” Law enforcement officials in South Florida considered it so scandalous, they arrested a record store owner for selling it.
Campbell and fellow 2 Live Crew member Christopher Wong Won, or Fresh Kid Ice, were also arrested on obscenity charges after performing songs from the album. In 1992 a federal appeals court overturned a court ruling that found the album was obscene.
Also at stake is the track “Pretty Woman,” which sampled the 1964 Roy Orbison classic. A dispute over 2 Live Crew’s remix of the song went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in 1994 that the group’s parody of the original constituted fair use.
The first of those rulings was a resounding victory for free expression that transcends rap, according to University of Richmond professor Erik Nielson, an expert on hip-hop and the law who grew up listening to 2 Live Crew as a kid. And the second helped bolster a foundational element of the genre’s sound: remixing older music to forge something new.
“It’s hard to overstate the significance of these rulings and the role of 2 Live Crew in carving out certain spaces for artistic expression,” Nielson said.
New York
Ex-Abercrombie & Fitch CEO arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries and two other men have been arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Details of the criminal charges weren’t immediately available. They come after years of sexual misconduct allegations, made in civil lawsuits and the media, from young people who said Jeffries lured them with promises of modeling work and then pressed them into sex acts.
Jeffries’ attorney, Brian Bieber, said by email he would “respond in detail to the allegations after the indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse — not the media.”
Information on attorneys for the other defendants wasn’t immediately available.
Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace and FBI and police officials were set to hold a news conference later Tuesday.
Jeffries left New Albany, Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch in 2014.
One civil lawsuit filed in New York last year accused Abercrombie of allowing Jeffries to run a sex-trafficking organization during his 22-year tenure. It said that Jeffries had modeling scouts scouring the internet for victims, and that some prospective models became sex-trafficking victims.
Abercrombie last year said it had hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation after a report on similar allegations was aired by the BBC.
The BBC investigation included a dozen men who described being at events involving sex acts they said were staged by Jeffries and his partner, Matthew Smith, often at his home in New York and hotels in London, Paris and elsewhere.
When the civil lawsuit was filed in New York last year, Bieber declined to comment on the allegations.
‘Blade Runner 2049’ producers sue Elon Musk and Tesla over AI image at event
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A film production company that helped make “Blade Runner 2049” has sued Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk for using an AI-generated image resembling a scene from the science fiction movie to market Tesla’s new robotaxis.
Alcon Entertainment said it refused all permissions but Tesla allegedly used artificial intelligence to “do it all anyway” when the carmaker unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi on Oct. 10 during a live-streamed event at a Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, California.
After pulling up to the stage in one of the company’s “Cybercabs,” Musk gave a speech that included a brief reference to the movie franchise. As he spoke, a screen showed an image of a man in a long coat looking over an orange-tinted ruined city.
Alcon claims it resembles a key scene in which star Ryan Gosling arrives in Las Vegas.
“I love Blade Runner, but I don’t know if we want that future,” Musk said. “I think we want that duster he’s wearing, but not the bleak apocalypse.”
A lawsuit filed by Alcon this week in a Southern California federal court alleges that defendants had previously asked permission to use images from the movie but Alcon “refused all permissions and adamantly objected.”
Alcon is also suing Warner Bros, the movie’s distributor that also hosted Musk’s robotaxi event.
Florida
Jury paves the way for 2 Live Crew to retake control of records
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Miami’s 2 Live Crew helped redraw the legal landscape around what hip-hop could be, pushing the boundaries of free speech and taste with their provocative and sexually explicit recordings that led to landmark court decisions protecting the rights of artists.
But for decades the hip-hop legends haven’t had legal control over their iconic discography, after giving up their rights to the records in bankruptcy proceedings that followed their legal fights in the 1990s.
Now a jury verdict is paving the way for surviving members of the group, and heirs of the two who have since died, to retake five of their early albums following a yearslong copyright dispute with a record company. The company is in the process of appealing.
The copyright case was brought by Lil’ Joe Records, which bought the rights to 2 Live Crew’s albums after the group’s record company filed for bankruptcy in 1995.
In 2020, the members of 2 Live Crew and the heirs notified Lil’ Joe that they were terminating its copyrights and that ownership of the albums would revert to the artists. In response, Lil’ Joe sued, arguing that it retained the copyrights under the bankruptcy agreement.
The federal jury in Florida decided in favor of 2 Live Crew and the heirs.
“Our team is proud to have been part of this historic trial,” attorney Scott Burroughs said in a statement. “Our overwhelming and total victory at trial will hopefully serve as a beacon to encourage other artists to brave the legal process to recover their copyrights.”
Richard Wolfe, an attorney representing Lil’ Joe, disputed the group’s claims, saying the terms of the bankruptcy mean his client retains all the rights. He said the battle is not over.
“It’s round two of a 10-round fight,” Wolfe said. “We have always said this case is not going not be decided at the trial court level. It’s going to be decided at the appellate level or possibly the Supreme Court level.”
Among the records at issue is the 1989 release “As Nasty As They Wanna Be”, which includes the tracks “Me So Horny” and “The F— Shop.” Law enforcement officials in South Florida considered it so scandalous, they arrested a record store owner for selling it.
Campbell and fellow 2 Live Crew member Christopher Wong Won, or Fresh Kid Ice, were also arrested on obscenity charges after performing songs from the album. In 1992 a federal appeals court overturned a court ruling that found the album was obscene.
Also at stake is the track “Pretty Woman,” which sampled the 1964 Roy Orbison classic. A dispute over 2 Live Crew’s remix of the song went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously in 1994 that the group’s parody of the original constituted fair use.
The first of those rulings was a resounding victory for free expression that transcends rap, according to University of Richmond professor Erik Nielson, an expert on hip-hop and the law who grew up listening to 2 Live Crew as a kid. And the second helped bolster a foundational element of the genre’s sound: remixing older music to forge something new.
“It’s hard to overstate the significance of these rulings and the role of 2 Live Crew in carving out certain spaces for artistic expression,” Nielson said.
New York
Ex-Abercrombie & Fitch CEO arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries and two other men have been arrested on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
Details of the criminal charges weren’t immediately available. They come after years of sexual misconduct allegations, made in civil lawsuits and the media, from young people who said Jeffries lured them with promises of modeling work and then pressed them into sex acts.
Jeffries’ attorney, Brian Bieber, said by email he would “respond in detail to the allegations after the indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse — not the media.”
Information on attorneys for the other defendants wasn’t immediately available.
Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace and FBI and police officials were set to hold a news conference later Tuesday.
Jeffries left New Albany, Ohio-based Abercrombie & Fitch in 2014.
One civil lawsuit filed in New York last year accused Abercrombie of allowing Jeffries to run a sex-trafficking organization during his 22-year tenure. It said that Jeffries had modeling scouts scouring the internet for victims, and that some prospective models became sex-trafficking victims.
Abercrombie last year said it had hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation after a report on similar allegations was aired by the BBC.
The BBC investigation included a dozen men who described being at events involving sex acts they said were staged by Jeffries and his partner, Matthew Smith, often at his home in New York and hotels in London, Paris and elsewhere.
When the civil lawsuit was filed in New York last year, Bieber declined to comment on the allegations.
