On March 15, technology website The Information reported that ByteDance has suspended the global rollout of its latest video generation model, Seedance 2.0, after a series of copyright disputes with major Hollywood studios and streaming platforms, two people familiar with the matter said.
ByteDance
In February this year, ByteDance officially released Seedance 2.0 and stated that the system is intended for professional film and television, e-commerce and advertising purposes, emphasizing that it can process text, images, audio and video at the same time, thereby reducing content production costs. Tech executives such as Elon Musk have praised its ability to generate movie-like storylines with a handful of prompts.
However, the model also sparked a copyright dispute. Last month, after Disney and other U.S. movie companies threatened legal action, ByteDance said it would take steps to prevent unauthorized use of intellectual property for its AI video generation model Seedance 2.0.
The Information stated that ByteDance originally planned to launch this new video model to global customers in mid-March, but has currently suspended this plan.
The report pointed out that ByteDance’s legal team is working hard to identify and resolve potential legal issues, and engineers are also adding security measures to the model to prevent the model from generating content that may lead to further infringement of intellectual property rights.
Disney issued a cease-and-desist notice to ByteDance last month, accusing it of using Disney characters to train and drive Seedance 2.0 without permission. Previously, videos generated by the model went viral in China, including a scene of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting.
Disney said that ByteDance pre-installed pirated databases containing characters from Disney's copyrighted series such as "Star Wars" and Marvel in the Seedance model, and used these characters as public domain video materials.
As of press time, ByteDance has not commented on this.