Paramount sends legal notice to ByteDance over ‘Seedance’ dispute

Hollywood organizations are now pushing back against ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0, which they have described as a tool for copyright infringement. Paramount Skydance has become the latest company to issue a cease-and-desist order to ByteDance, the parent company of video streaming platform TikTok, over the generative artificial intelligence model.

ByteDance launched Seedance 2.0 earlier this week, with the updated model currently available to Chinese users of its Jianying app. While the company says it would soon be available to the global users of its CapCut app, the application has since drawn criticism over its ability to create videos using the likeness of real people as well as intellectual property owned by studios.

Paramount Skydance sends cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance

According to Paramount Skydance, ByteDance is engaging in what it calls a ‘blatant infringement’ of its intellectual property with its Seedance video and Seedream image generative AI platforms. The company alleged that the Chinese technology company is illegally using its IP, naming several characters and moves, including Dora the Explorer, South Park, Star Trek, The Godfather, and more. The company sent the letter on Saturday, asking ByteDance to discontinue the alleged infringement.

The letter was sent from Gabriel Miller, the intellectual property head of Paramount Skydance, and was addressed to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo. In the letter, Miller mentioned that much of the content that the Seed platforms have been producing contained depictions of famous characters and franchises of Paramount’s. He noted that these materials are protected under copyright law, trademark law, and the law of unfair competition.

Miller added that the content in the AI-generated images and videos produced by ByteDance platforms is often indistinguishable, both visually and audibly, from Paramount’s copyrighted characters and stories. He noted that Paramount’s characters such as “South Park,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Star Trek,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “The Godfather,” “Dora the Explorer” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender” have “all been repeatedly infringed by the Seed Platforms’ production and subsequent public performance and distribution of these images and videos.”

The intellectual property head also mentioned that the recent release of the Seedance 2.0 video generation tool has seen ByteDance not only continue its infringing activities, but it has now become more prevalent, and the unlawful outputs are now more widely released. In the letter, Paramount asked ByteDance to prevent violations of its intellectual property rights by ensuring that its content is not used or created by ByteDance or the Seed Platforms going forward, and remove all infringing instances of Paramount’s content from ByteDance’s platforms and systems.

Hollywood groups blast ByteDance and Seedance 2.0

Paramount Skydance is not the only studio that has issued a cease-and-desist order to ByteDance since the release of Seedance 2.0. According to a previous Cryptopolitan report, Disney sent a letter to that effect on Friday, noting that the company is making its AI platform a pirated library of Disney’s copyrighted characters and franchises. “ByteDance’s virtual smash-and-grab of Disney’s IP is willful, pervasive, and totally unacceptable,” David Singer, a partner at Jenner & Block, wrote on behalf of Disney.

Charles Rivkin, CEO of the Motion Picture Association, also issued a statement demanding that ByteDance cease its infringing activity. “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,” Rivkin said. He noted that by launching a service that operates without safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding established copyright law that protects creators and facilitates millions of American jobs.

The Human Artistry Campaign, an initiative backed by numerous Hollywood unions and trade groups, has also criticized ByteDance and Seedance 2.0, calling it an attack on every creator around the world, with SAG-AFTRA saying it stands with the studios in condemning the blatant infringement enabled by ByteDance’s new AI video model.

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