ByteDance is scrambling to add copyright protections to its Seedance 2.0 AI video generator after facing legal threats from Hollywood's biggest studios. The TikTok parent confirmed it will strengthen safeguards on the tool following backlash from Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, and Universal, marking the latest flashpoint in the escalating battle between AI developers and content creators over generative AI training data.
ByteDance just blinked in its standoff with Hollywood. The company behind TikTok announced it will strengthen copyright protections on Seedance 2.0, its powerful AI video generation tool, after facing a united front of legal threats from the entertainment industry's heaviest hitters.
The climbdown comes after Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, and Universal raised alarms about potential copyright infringement in how the tool was trained and what it could produce. According to CNBC, ByteDance confirmed it's working to implement new safeguards, though the company hasn't detailed exactly what those protections will look like or when they'll be deployed.
The timing couldn't be more sensitive. Generative AI video tools have exploded in capability over the past year, with companies racing to release products that can turn text prompts into Hollywood-quality footage. But that race has collided head-on with fundamental questions about intellectual property - specifically, whether these models were trained on copyrighted film and TV content without permission.
Seedance 2.0 represents ByteDance's ambitious push into AI-generated video, a space where competitors like OpenAI with Sora and startups like Runway have already staked claims. The tool can generate photorealistic video clips from text descriptions, raising both excitement about creative possibilities and alarm bells about potential misuse. Hollywood studios worry that AI tools trained on their content could eventually replace human creators or flood the market with derivative works.
