Hollywood studios are escalating their concerns over artificial intelligence, with the Motion Picture Association (MPA) issuing a strong rebuke of ByteDance’s newly launched AI video generation tool, Seedance 2.0, alleging “unauthorized use of U.S. Copyrighted works on a massive scale.” The complaint, issued Thursday, centers on the platform’s ability to rapidly create realistic video clips from text, image, video and audio prompts.
Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the MPA, stated that ByteDance is “disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs” by launching a service lacking “meaningful safeguards against infringement.” The MPA is demanding ByteDance immediately cease its infringing activity.
The launch of Seedance 2.0, available through ByteDance’s Dreamina AI platform and AI assistant Doubao, has already sparked alarm within the filmmaking community. Visual effects artist and writer-director Ruairi Robinson posted a clip to X generated from a two-line prompt depicting a fight between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, commenting on the potential implications for the industry. Rhett Reese, writer of features including Deadpool & Wolverine, shared Robinson’s clip, expressing concern over the tool’s professional quality and the potential consequences for Hollywood.
Seedance 2.0 is capable of generating clips up to 15 seconds in duration and, according to ByteDance, represents a “substantial leap in generation quality,” with improvements in physical accuracy, visual realism, and controllability, making it suitable for “industrial-grade creation scenarios.” However, the MPA asserts that the service is already being used to replicate copyrighted material. Examples cited include remixes of Avengers: Endgame and a scene from Friends featuring otters instead of the original actors.
The controversy surrounding Seedance 2.0 arrives as studios grapple with the broader implications of AI-generated content. In October, studios raised similar concerns after OpenAI introduced Sora 2, a service capable of generating works featuring copyrighted characters, prompting OpenAI to implement recent restrictions. ByteDance’s U.S. Operations were recently spun off into a separate joint venture following the passage of a law requiring divestiture, adding another layer of complexity to the situation.
As of Friday, ByteDance had not issued a public response to the MPA’s allegations. The MPA has not specified what legal or regulatory steps it intends to pursue beyond demanding a cessation of infringing activity.
