By: Bella Hood

Thanks to social media, U2’s visual performance at the Las Vegas Sphere is one few can claim they aren’t at a minimum tickled by. The ominous round structure seats nearly 18,000 people sitting at 366 feet tall and 516 feet wide. A creative project of James Dolan, the executive chair of Madison Square Garden and owner of the New York Knicks and Rangers, the novel entertainment venue was completed in September 2023 on an astounding $2.3B budget.

U2 holds the honor of christening the venue with a multi-month residency that has been so well-received that the band just announced 11 additional shows to occur in January and February of 2024, for a total of 36 performances. Perhaps surprisingly, while droves of middle-aged suburbanites filed in to scratch their 80s Rock nostalgic itch, the music took a backseat to the immersive visual experience encompassing a 16K wraparound LED screen.

Several songs into U2’s performance, a 4-minute whimsical display of hundreds of images of Elvis Presley engulfs the venue and transcends all existing mental perceptions of The King.

An artist known for his elaborate re-contextualizations of popular and found imagery, as well as his pioneering use of digital imaging technologies in video installation and art, Marco Brambilla leveraged AI to portray Elvis in a fantastical, sci-fi-esc light. He fed clips from over 30 Elvis movies into the 2022 text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, the more realistic-looking sibling to Dall-E2.

U2 and Elvis may sound like an odd coupling, but the band’s lead singer, Bono, has been a vocal supporter of the icon for decades. In fact, U2’s lyrics are sprinkled with allusions to The King of Rock and Roll and even patent references at times, including the song titled “Elvis Presley and America.”

Regardless of how famous a musician or band may be, one cannot use just any person’s likeness on a whim. Failure to obtain permission from said person, or their estate, can result in a potential defamation claim. While many aspects of entertainment law involve overlapping state and federal government oversight, this issue is largely state-specific. According to the American Bar Association, the modern test requires two elements:

• the defendant, without permission, has used some aspect of the plaintiff’s identity or persona in such a way that the plaintiff is identifiable from the defendant’s use; and
• the defendant’s use is likely to cause damage to the commercial value of that persona.

Without a doubt, Elvis’ estate is well-versed in likeness laws. In 1981, his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, established Elvis Presley Enterprises, Inc (EPE). Currently, Authentic Brands Group (ABG) owns roughly 85% of EPE, the remainder belonging to The King’s only descendant, Lisa Marie Presley. The estate does not shy of the legal system, vigorously protecting the cultural icon’s legacy.

Past targets of EPE include wedding chapels in Las Vegas, Nevada, gun manufacturer Beretta (headquartered near Milan, Italy), and a nightclub in Houston, Texas called the Velvet Elvis.

This begs the question, how was Brambilla able to create and U2 able to display an entire video montage of hundreds of versions of Elvis for the entire length of the song “Even Better Than The Real Thing”? Despite speaking to multiple outlets, Brambilla has yet to confirm or deny his permission to use over 12,000 film samples of Elvis’s performances.

In looking at the propensity to sue over likeness or otherwise, one should consider the parties involved. ABG was valued at $12.7 billion in 2021 after nearly going public and also owns the intellectual property rights of Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, and Shaquille O’Neal.

Between the behemoth’s unlimited legal resources, the Sphere’s already infamous reputation, and U2’s success thus far with the residency, it seems unlikely at this point that Authentic Brands Group could be unaware of the Elvis tribute. Therefore, if ABG wanted to send a cease and desist, they would have done so by now. Even if a lawsuit were imminent, ABG would be hard-pressed to demonstrate that U2 and Brambilla’s portrayal of Elvis is even remotely damaging to his commercial persona.