ByteDance says that it’s rushing to add safeguards to block Seedance 2.0 from generating iconic characters and deepfaking celebrities, after substantial Hollywood backlash after launching the latest version of its AI video tool.
The changes come after Disney and Paramount Skydance sent cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance urging the Chinese company to promptly end the allegedly vast and blatant infringement.
Studios claimed the infringement was widescale and immediate, with Seedance 2.0 users across social media sharing AI videos featuring copyrighted characters like Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and SpongeBob Square Pants. In its letter, Disney fumed that Seedance was “hijacking” its characters, accusing ByteDance of treating Disney characters like they were “free public domain clip art,” Axios reported.
“ByteDance’s virtual smash-and-grab of Disney’s IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable,” Disney’s letter said.
Defending intellectual property from franchises like Star Trek and The Godfather, Paramount Skydance pointed out that Seedance’s outputs are “often indistinguishable, both visually and audibly” from the original characters, Variety reported. Similarly frustrated, Japan’s AI minister Kimi Onoda, sought to protect popular anime and manga characters, officially launching a probe last week into ByteDance over the copyright violations, the South China Morning Post reported.
“We cannot overlook a situation in which content is being used without the copyright holder’s permission,” Onoda said at a press conference Friday.
Facing legal threats and Japan’s investigation, ByteDance issued a statement Monday, CNBC reported. In it, the company claimed that it “respects intellectual property rights” and has “heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0.”
“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” ByteDance said.
However, Disney seems unlikely to accept that ByteDance inadvertently released its tool without implementing such safeguards in advance. In its letter, Disney alleged that “Seedance has infringed on Disney’s copyrighted materials to benefit its commercial service without permission.”