Seedance 2.0’s artificial intelligence is limited following Hollywood protests

Chinese company ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has announced it will limit artificial intelligence tool Seedance after legal threats from Disney and protests from other major entertainment studios. This decision came after 2.0 Seedance produced many realistic videos of Hollywood studio productions.

The Chinese company told the BBC it respects intellectual property rights and has heard concerns about Seedance 2.0. The company added that it is taking action to strengthen protection mechanisms and prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and people’s faces by users. Bytedance did not provide technical details about these restrictions.

Bytedance controls the artificial intelligence of the Seedance video maker

Like other generative AI tools, the Seedance model generates video based on text. Many of Seedance’s videos feature well-known actors and personalities and have become popular on social media since the release of version 2.0.

The BBC has found examples of videos attributed to Seedance that show Star Wars characters like Anakin Skywalker and Rey in lightsaber combat. Other examples show Spider-Man fighting Captain America on the streets of New York. These videos have heightened studios’ concerns about widespread copyright infringement.

Disney sent a letter to Bytedance on Friday, accusing the company of stealing art from copyrighted characters for its artificial intelligence Seedance. Disney’s lawyers described the move as a “virtual assault” on the company’s intellectual property, saying Marvel, Star Wars and various animated characters were used in Seedance without permission.

Bytedance previously announced that it has stopped uploading images of real people to Seedance. The company emphasized that it takes intellectual property rights and copyright protection seriously and follows up on any possible violations. However, the lack of transparency about Seedance’s training data has fueled criticism.

Disney’s legal threat has been raised at the same time as the pressure of other Hollywood institutions on Bytedance. The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents major studios such as Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Netflix, called on Seedance to “immediately stop the infringing activity.”