After the fake video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting went viral, a surge of AI-generated content from Seedance 2.0 flooded the internet.
Some fans were using the new AI video generator, backed by ByteDance, to refashion the finales for shows like โGame of Thronesโ and โStranger Things.โ Others created battle scenes between iconic superheroes like Wolverine and Superman or between a Transformer and Godzilla.
As these Seedance videos amassed millions of views on social media, industry guilds like SAG-AFTRA and the Motion Picture Assn. have criticized the AI platform that was launched last week. Now, many major Hollywood studios are threatening to take legal action against ByteDance, the same Chinese parent that oversees TikTok.
Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Disney have all sent individual cease and desist letters, detailing the unauthorized reproduction of each of the studiosโ copyrighted intellectual property.
Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery were the latest studios to send cease and desists letter to ByteDance on Tuesday.
Netflix calls Seedance โa high-speed privacy engineโ and says that they โwill not stand by and watch ByteDance treat our valued IP as free, public domain clip art,โ as stated in the letter. The streamer also cites the illegal use of sets derived from โSquid Game,โ costumes from โBridgertonโ and character design from โKPop Demon Hunters.โ
Warner Bros. Discovery looks to repurposed content, including characters from the โHarry Potterโ and โLord of the Ringsโ franchises, as well as superheroes like Batman, as โ blatant infringementโ by ByteDance. The studio argues that itโs clear that their AI technology was trained on Warner Bros. copyrighted material โwithout authorization.โ
โBut the users are not the ones at the root cause of the infringement; they are merely building on the foundation of infringement already laid by ByteDance as Seedance comes pre-loaded with Warner Bros. Discoveryโs copyrighted characters,โ wrote the studiosโ legal executive vice president Wayne Smith. โThat was a deliberate design choice by ByteDance.โ
Disney and Paramount were the first of the studios to call out ByteDance, sending their letters last Friday and Saturday. Disney accuses ByteDance of loading its Seedance service โwith a pirated library of Disneyโs copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel, and other Disney franchises.โ
โOver Disneyโs well-publicized objections, ByteDance is hijacking Disneyโs characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters. ByteDanceโs virtual smash-and-grab of Disneyโs IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable,โ Disneyโs attorney David Singer wrote, per Axios.
Paramountโs cease and desist letter was reviewed by The Times and makes similar assertions about ByteDanceโs unapproved use of copyrighted material.
ByteDance has since pledged to implement more safeguards to protect copyrighted material in response to these letters.
โByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,โ a company spokesperson said in a statement shared with CNBC. โWe are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.โ
But with or without the safeguards, Dan Purcell, chief executive of Midnight Labs, an AI-powered company that specializes in IP protection for high-value entertainment, said these letters might be a bit of a delayed reaction from the studios.
โOnce synthetic content is generated, it spreads instantly and at a massive scale. By the time lawyers engage, the damage is done,โ said Purcell in a statement. โThe only path forward is strict licensing, real-time enforcement, and consequences that actually hurt. Reactive letters wonโt fix this. The industry needs to move at the speed of AI โ not the speed of litigation.โ