Mid AI scandal, Hollywood studios threaten ByteDance with legal action
After the fake video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting went viral, a wave of AI-generated content from Seedance 2.0 flooded the internet.
Some fans were using the new AI video generator, backed by ByteDance, to reshape the finales of shows like “Game of Thrones” and “Stranger Things.” Others created fight scenes between iconic superheroes like Wolverine and Superman or between a Transformer and Godzilla.
While these Seedance videos have racked up millions of views on social media, industry guilds like SAG-AFTRA and the Motion Picture Assn. criticized the AI platform launched last week. Now, many major Hollywood studios are threatening legal action against ByteDance, the same Chinese parent company that oversees TikTok.
Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Disney have all sent individual cease and desist letters, detailing the unauthorized reproduction of each studio’s copyrighted intellectual property.
Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery were the latest studios to send a cease and desist letter to ByteDance on Tuesday.
Netflix calls Seedance “a high-speed privacy engine” and says they “will not stand idly by and watch ByteDance treat our valuable intellectual property like free public domain clip art,” as stated in the letter. The streamer also cites illegal use of “Squid Game”-derived sets, “Bridgerton” costumes and “KPop Demon Hunters” character designs.
Warner Bros. Discovery considers reused content, including characters from the “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” franchises, as well as superheroes like Batman, to be a “blatant infraction” by ByteDance. The studio says it’s clear their AI technology was trained on material copyrighted by Warner Bros. “without authorization”.
“But users are not causing infringement; they are simply building on the foundation for infringement already laid by ByteDance since Seedance comes preloaded with Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrighted characters,” wrote the studios’ executive vice president of legal, Wayne Smith. “This was a deliberate design choice by ByteDance.”
Disney and Paramount were the first of the studios to call ByteDance, sending their letters last Friday and Saturday. Disney accuses ByteDance of loading its Seedance service “with a pirated library of copyrighted Disney characters from Star Wars, Marvel and other Disney franchises.”
“Despite Disney’s highly publicized objections, ByteDance misappropriates Disney characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters. ByteDance’s virtual theft of Disney intellectual property is deliberate, pervasive, and completely unacceptable,” Disney attorney David Singer wrote, per Axios.
Paramount’s cease-and-desist letter was reviewed by the Times and makes similar claims about ByteDance’s unapproved use of copyrighted material.
ByteDance has since committed to implementing more safeguards to protect copyrighted material in response to these letters.
“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,” a company spokesperson said in a statement shared with CNBC. “We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
But with or without safeguards, Dan Purcell, chief executive of Midnight Labs, an AI-based company specializing in intellectual property protection for high-value entertainment, said the letters might be a bit of a late reaction from studios.
“Once synthetic content is generated, it spreads instantly and widely. By the time lawyers get involved, the damage is done,” Purcell said in a statement. “The only way forward is strict licensing, real-time enforcement, and consequences that actually hurt. Reactive letters won’t solve this problem. The industry must move at the speed of AI, not the speed of litigation.”
