The Motion Picture Association urged ByteDance on Friday to stop copyright infringement on its Seedance 2.0 AI platform, saying that the Chinese company’s assurances are not enough.
Speaking on behalf of its seven member companies, the MPA sent a cease and desist letter to ByteDance’s Culver City, Calif., office demanding that it stop training on the studios’ movies and TV shows, and that it implement safeguards to stop users from generating copyrighted material.
The MPA kicked off the industry protest against Seedance 2.0 on Feb. 12, issuing a statement that called on ByteDance to immediately cease its infringement. Six of the seven member studios have since sent cease and desist letters to ByteDance.
ByteDance, which also owns TikTok, has responded with a two-sentence statement saying that it respects copyright protections and will take steps to strengthen existing safeguards.
Karyn Temple, the MPA general counsel, said in the letter on Friday that the industry needs “far more than general statements.”
“Our ongoing investigation and review of social media platforms continues to reveal examples of Seedance producing material that clearly infringes on our members’ rights,” she wrote.
The fight over Seedance 2.0 has unified the studios in a way that previous AI conflicts have not. Disney and Universal have been the most aggressive among the studios in defending their iconic characters from unauthorised use, filing the first major lawsuit against Midjourney last year.
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Though it remains limited to short clips, the Seedance platform marks a significant technological advance, combining voice and picture to deliver a more cinematic look to live-action sequences. Sony, Netflix and Paramount — which sat out the earlier fights — have joined in the protests.
ByteDance could follow the lead of OpenAI, which put up significant guardrails on Sora 2 following a similar outcry last fall, and then entered into a partnership with Disney. If it does not, the studios and the MPA could be faced with the challenges and delays inherent in suing a China-based company.
The MPA letter cites Seedance videos that include characters like Shrek, SpongeBob, Darth Vader and Deadpool — as well as one based on “Stranger Things.”
“The scale and consistency of these results demonstrate systemic infringement rather than inadvertence,” Temple wrote. “In other words, Seedance’s copyright infringement is a feature, not a bug.”
The letter seeks a response by Feb. 27 to confirm “the specific steps ByteDance has taken to address
these issues.”
The letter also cited an X post from one user that included an AI-generated Spider-Man fight sequence.
“The best part about Seedance 2.0 is they don’t give a shit about copyright laws and users can make cool stuff like this,” the user wrote. “Imo this is great for IP distribution.”
From Variety US