- ByteDance halts global launch of Seedance 2.0 after copyright complaints.
- Hollywood studios send cease-and-desist letters over AI-generated characters.
- Motion Picture Association demands suspension of infringing AI outputs.
- ByteDance says it will add safeguards to prevent intellectual property misuse.
Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros., Netflix and Sony have all sent cease-and-desist letters to TikTok's parent company over its viral AI video model which generated deepfakes of Tom Cruise and Spider-Man within days of launch.
The Chinese parent company of Tik Tok, ByteDance, has halted the intended global launch of Seedance 2.0 the viral AI-based video generation framework, following a flood of copyright claims by the largest movie and streaming organizations in Hollywood, The Information reported on Saturday based on two individuals with direct knowledge of the event.
This suspension puts an end to a mid-March world launch. ByteDance had made Seedance 2.0 look like a professional film, e-commerce and advertising tool, capable of handling text, images, audio and video at the same time.
Its capability to create film effects on a few entreaties, had drawn likening to DeepSeek and commendation by technological mainstays such as Elon Musk. The deliverables became viral, and such attention became quite negative.
A library of Characters-pirated
In days after the launch of Seedance 2.0 in February, rafts of AI-generated video content were uploaded to social media of Spider-Man, Darth Vader, Baby Yoda, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Godfather characters, and a rooftop brawl between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. The first to take action was Disney that sent a cease-and-desist letter to the CEO of the collaboration, Liang Rubo, accusing the company of wholesale theft.
"ByteDance's virtual smash-and-grab of Disney's IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable. We believe this is just the tip of the iceberg which is shocking considering Seedance has only been available for a few days." - David Singer, Outside Counsel, Disney
Warner Bros Discovery, Paramount Skydance, and Netflix and Sony Picture posted their cease and desist letters. All five studios came out firing with the Motion Picture Association condemning the industry afterwards, with its chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin demanding an immediate stop.
"In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale. By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs. ByteDance should immediately cease its infringing activity." - Charles Rivkin, Chairman and CEO, Motion Picture Association
ByteDance's Response
ByteDance released a statement that it heard complaints and would introduce protective measures. A spokesperson of ByteDance said that the company respects the intellectual property rights and it has heard the concerns about Seedance 2.0. We are making moves to enhance existing controls in the event of avoiding unauthorized usage of intellectual property and likeness by clients. In a subsequent letter, the MPA declared that it could do with much more than platitudes at this stage.
The Information describes that now the legal team of ByteDance tries to find and fix the possible legal problems, and engineers implement technical protection to avoid the model producing infringing information. Reuters reported that it was not able to confirm the suspension report on its own. A request to comment was not responded to by ByteDance.
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The conflict marks a fault line which has grown among Chinese AI companies - which have created strong, low-cost models with less respect to Western intellectual property - and Hollywood studios who have signed licensing agreements with US competitors such as OpenAI, the Sora video generator of which is under a formal agreement with Disney related to Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel characters.
