Scenes from incredibly realistic movies or series made without any actors, directors, or production studios. Seedance 2.0 is something that could scare Hollywood, and it’s not a fictional villain. For the past few weeks, videos generated by this AI have been spreading on social media and causing a stir in the world of cinema.
In these videos, we see Jack not dying at the end of Titanic, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen getting married and having many children in Game of Thrones, and even an alternative ending to Stranger Things that pleases fans. The most viral one, the one that sparked controversy, shows a deadly battle between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise regarding Jeffrey Epstein.
Behind these images is the cutting-edge video generator software, Seedance, owned by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. And its technological feats are not sitting well with the film industry.
Seedance in the crosshairs of major studios
After the widespread dissemination of the video showing the battle between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, the president of the Motion Picture Association accused the Chinese software of “massive” copyright violations. The association represents the interests of major American film studios: Disney, Universal, Warner, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Amazon MGM, and Prime Video.
In a statement, its president Charles H. Rivkin warned: “By launching a service that operates without substantial guarantees against counterfeiting, ByteDance disregards well-established copyright law that protects creators’ rights and supports millions of American jobs. ByteDance should immediately cease its rights-violating activities.”
The actors and entertainment professionals’ union, SAG-AFTRA, asserts that Seedance 2.0 “violates the law, ethics, industry standards, and fundamental principles of consent.”
ByteDance did not delay in responding, acknowledging the concerns. The parent company of Seedance 2.0 stated, “respects intellectual property rights” and added that they are taking steps to “strengthen current protection mechanisms.”
An insufficient response for Netflix, which went even further on February 17 by sending a cease and desist letter to ByteDance. The streaming platform threatens to sue the Chinese tech giant for intellectual property infringement.
Netflix raises the stakes
“We will not stand idly by while ByteDance treats our valuable intellectual property as public domain royalty-free images,” stated Netflix in its two-page letter. The streaming platform has every reason to be upset: ByteDance even used the worlds of Bridgerton or Stranger Things to promote Seedance with impunity.
To “avoid immediate legal action,” Netflix now demands that the company stop generating content resembling Netflix products, remove all problematic content, provide a detailed list of each copyright infringement, and revoke access to all users who have produced content violating intellectual property.
ByteDance has not yet responded to this threat. Currently, the latest version of Seedance released on February 12 is only accessible in China. But ByteDance has already planned to integrate the tool into its video editing application CapCut, used worldwide.
