ByteDance Quickly Backs Off ‘Seedance 2.0’ After Legal Threats

Photo Credit: BoliviaInteligente

ByteDance vows to strengthen safeguards on its new AI video-making tool after threats of litigation from Disney over alleged copyright theft.

Update: Warner Bros. has joined in the chorus of blasting ByteDance for what it calls “blatant infringement” that facilitates user-generated knock-offs of its iconic characters. The studio’s legal counsel sent a letter to John Rogovin, ByteDance’s general counsel, highlighting Rogovin’s former service in defense of iconic characters like Superman and Batman. The letter demands that ByteDance cease training on its characters and implement guardrails to prevent further infringement.

Chinese tech company ByteDance’s AI video model, Seedance 2.0, was met with backlash over videos shared online that appear to use copyrighted characters and celebrity likenesses. Now, ByteDance has vowed to strengthen safeguards on the tool, following allegations of copyright theft and a cease and desist from Disney.

“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights, and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,” said a ByteDance spokesperson. “We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”

The company’s response follows outcry from Hollywood groups, including the Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents major studios like Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Paramount Skydance (who also filed a cease and desist), Sony, and Universal. And, of course, the threat of litigation from the House of Mouse.

“In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale,” said MPA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin. “By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs.”

Disney’s cease and desist letter sent on Friday alleges that ByteDance distributed and reproduced its intellectual property without permission via its new AI tool. It also claimed that ByteDance had essentially shipped Seedance pre-packaged with a pirated library of copyrighted characters “portraying them as if they were public-domain clip art.”

ByteDance countered that users were uploading images of celebrities or copyrighted characters to the platform to generate an output, implying that the model was not trained on stolen material—but that claim has not been proven. The company said that the ability to upload images to the tool had already been disabled, and what was available had been part of an early test, rather than a fully public rollout.