The Motion Picture Association of America condemns Bytedance’s new model Seedance 2.0 for causing “mass copyright infringement”

On Thursday, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) issued a strong condemnation of ByteDance’s latest AI video generation model, Seedance 2.0, saying it triggered a “flood” of copyright infringements just one day after its launch. The trigger for this controversy was an AI-generated video that went viral on social media, showing Hollywood superstars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting fiercely on a rooftop. The degree of realism is staggering.

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, claims that Seedance 2.0 represents a "substantial leap" in production quality. However, the Motion Picture Association of America isn't buying it. A spokesman for the association sternly pointed out in a statement that Seedance 2.0 made large-scale, unauthorized use of works protected by U.S. copyright law in just one day. The statement emphasized that ByteDance has launched a service that lacks effective infringement protection measures. This not only ignores the mature legal system designed to protect the rights of creators, but also threatens the livelihood of millions of American film practitioners. The MPA clearly requires ByteDance to immediately stop this infringement.

This incident is reminiscent of the situation when OpenAI released Sora 2 last fall, which also caused a similar copyright controversy. At that time, MPA also called on OpenAI to take decisive action. In response, OpenAI subsequently implemented stricter security measures, making it significantly more difficult for users to generate content that infringed on studio copyrights. Disney later even reached a deal with OpenAI, licensing it to use 200 characters in Sora 2, which many in the industry see as a template for cooperation that other studios may follow. However, it is unclear whether ByteDance is willing to take a similar path, or whether copyright holders will be forced to start pursuing legal action. So far, ByteDance has not responded to a request for comment.

The videos generated by Seedance 2.0 caused panic and helplessness in the industry. Rhett Reese, the screenwriter of the "Deadpool" series of movies, commented pessimistically after seeing the video of "Tom Cruise vs. Pitt": "I hate to say it, but we may be really doomed. Soon, just one person sitting in front of a computer will be able to make movies that are indistinguishable from Hollywood's existing distribution standards."

The author of the viral video is Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson. He revealed on social platform Faced with the controversy on the Internet, he half-jokingly asked: "Today's question is: Should I be executed for typing two lines of text and pressing a button?"

In addition to the fight videos of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, a large number of video clips involving well-known IPs such as "Spider-Man", "Titanic", "Stranger Things", "Lord of the Rings" and "Shrek" produced using Seedance have also emerged on the Internet, showing the tool's huge loopholes in copyright protection.