Hollywood studios and other creative organisations have expressed strong opposition to a new AI video generation model, Seedance 2.0, which they claim is helping to fuel rampant copyright infringement. The model was unveiled by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, earlier this week and has already drawn legal threats and public condemnation from leading industry bodies.
What Is Seedance 2.0 and Why Is It Controversial?
Seedance 2.0 is an AI video generation model that lets users generate short videos, as of now at a maximum of 15 seconds long, based on text prompts alone. Called Transpose, the model is live for Chinese users through ByteDance’s Jianying app and will soon be available globally using CapCut, reports The Wall Street Journal.
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Like OpenAI’s Sora, Seedance can produce realistic video of people and characters. But critics say it does not have enough checks to prevent the unauthorised use of real actors’ likenesses and copyrighted characters.
After an AI-generated clip showing Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt circulated online, “Deadpool” screenwriter Rhett Reese commented, “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”
The Motion Picture Association responded swiftly. CEO Charles Rivkin issued a statement accusing ByteDance of large-scale infringement, saying the company must “immediately cease its infringing activity.”
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Reports suggest Seedance videos have featured Disney-owned characters like Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and Grogu. According to Axios, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter accusing ByteDance of a “virtual smash-and-grab of Disney’s IP.” Paramount reportedly followed with a similar legal notice.
In an age of thousands of AI video tools, Seedance 2.0 has raced past old lines in the sand over copyright law, creator rights and regulation of AIs around the world. Now with big studios and unions fighting back, ByteDance could soon find itself under growing legal and regulatory pressure as the industry struggles to determine how far generative AI can go before it runs afoul of the law.