ByteDance AI video tool Seedance accused by Disney of copyright ‘smash and grab’

ByteDance is working to strengthen safeguards in its Seedance 2.0 video-generation tool after it received global blowback for alleged intellectual property (IP) violations, the Chinese short-video giant said on Sunday.The controversy focuses on the TikTok owner’s alleged use of copyrighted content to train its artificial intelligence model, as videos of Hollywood celebrities, Disney characters and comic book heroes generated by Seedance have flooded the web in recent days.On Saturday, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter accusing ByteDance of a “virtual smash-and-grab of Disney’s IP”, as its new model can purportedly generate videos of Disney-owned characters from the Marvel and Star Wars universes, a source told the South China Morning Post.The legal action came after criticism of the new model from major Hollywood bodies, with actors’ union SAG-AFTRA accusing the model of “blatant infringement” and the Motion Picture Association’s CEO Charles Rivkin calling for ByteDance to “immediately cease its infringing activity.” The union and the association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights, and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,” ByteDance told the South China Morning Post on Sunday. “We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”Disney sent a similar cease and desist letter to Google in December, which prompted the US tech giant to restrict the generation of Disney-owned characters in its Nano Banana and Gemini AI services.