ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, has said it will restrain its AI video-making tool, after threats of legal action from Disney and a backlash from other media businesses, according to reports.
The AI video generator Seedance 2.0, released last week, has spooked Hollywood as users create realistic clips of movie stars and superheroes with just a short text prompt.
Several big Hollywood studios have accused the tool of copyright infringement.
On Friday, Walt Disney reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance which accused it of supplying Seedance with a “pirated library” of the studio’s characters, including those from Marvel and Star Wars, according to the US news outlet Axios.
Disney’s lawyers claimed that ByteDance committed a “virtual smash-and-grab” of their intellectual property, according to a report from the BBC.
However, the TikTok owner told the BBC it “respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0”.
A spokesperson for the company told the broadcaster it was “taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users”, but declined to provide further details on its plans.
Seedance can generate videos based on just a few lines of text. Last week, Rhett Reese, the co-writer of Deadpool & Wolverine, Zombieland and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, said “it’s likely over for us” after watching a widely disseminated AI-generated clip featuring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting.
He added: “In next to no time, one person is going to be able to sit at a computer and create a movie indistinguishable from what Hollywood now releases. True, if that person is no good, it will suck. But if that person possesses Christopher Nolan’s talent and taste (and someone like that will rapidly come along), it will be tremendous.”
The first iteration of Seedance launched in June last year.
The Motion Picture Association, the Hollywood trade association that represents studios such as Paramount, Warner Bros and Netflix, accused ByteDance of “unauthorised use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale”. The actors’ union Sag-Aftra has accused Seedance of “blatant infringement”.
It is the latest clash in Hollywood amid anxiety over the impact of AI on the future of entertainment. Artists and creative industries have called for compensation for the use of their material and the establishment of licensing frameworks to enable legal use of their content.
Last year, Disney and NBCUniversal sued the AI image generator Midjourney over what the studios claimed were “endless unauthorised copies” of their works.
However, creative companies are also making deals with AI businesses. Last year, Disney announced a $1bn equity investment in OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, and a three-year licensing agreement that enables its Sora video generation tool to use some of Disney’s characters.
ByteDance and Walt Disney were approached for comment.
