Extreme Hollywood Backlash Continues Against Seedance 2.0

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Netflix is the latest company to send ByteDance a cease and desist over its Seedance 2.0 AI service, and the first to threaten litigation outright.

Netflix has joined three other major studios in sending cease and desist letters to ByteDance for enabling copyright infringement through its Seedance 2.0 AI platform. On Tuesday, Netflix sent a letter demanding that the company remove Netflix IP from training datasets and prevent further infringement from occurring. The entertainment giant’s letter is the first to threaten “immediate litigation,” following similar letters issued by Disney, Paramount, and Warner Bros.

“Seedance acts as a high-speed piracy engine, generating mass quantities of unauthorized derivative works utilizing Netflix’s iconic characters, worlds, and scripted narratives,” wrote Mandy LeMoine, Netflix’s Director of Litigation. “Netflix will not stand by and watch ByteDance treat our valued IP as free, public domain clip art.”

The “clip art” comparison follows that made by Disney in its cease and desist letter sent to ByteDance earlier this week. Warner Bros. and Paramount have similarly issued letters accusing ByteDance of enabling infringement of their respective intellectual properties.

Specifically, Netflix accused ByteDance of enabling infringement of “KPop Demon Hunters,” “Stranger Things,” “Squid Game,” and “Bridgerton.”

“ByteDance has even promoted [infringing “Bridgerton”] content using #Bridgerton tags via its own official social media channels, such as @BytePlusGlobal,” LeMoine wrote.

Netflix’s letter also asserts that users have created “unauthorized crossovers, such as inserting real-world figures like Elon Musk into the Squid Game environment.”

“Netflix has never authorized ByteDance to use our content to generate these images or videos. ByteDance’s activities are willful and constitute direct and secondary copyright infringement. The use of copyrighted works to create a competing commercial product, especially one that regurgitates the original, is not protected by fair use,” the letter stated.

Netflix has given the Chinese tech giant three days to take action. To “avoid immediate litigation,” that action includes the removal of all infringing content, an accounting of all instances where infringement has occurred, revoking third-party access by commercial partners or API users, and ceasing further generative output of infringing content.

The move follows ByteDance claiming to be “taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”