Hollywood isn’t happy about the new Seedance 2.0 video generator

Hollywood organisations are raising alarms about a new AI video model called Seedance 2.0, arguing that it has rapidly become a vehicle for “blatant” copyright infringement.

ByteDance — the Chinese company that recently finalised a deal to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations while retaining a stake in the new joint venture — introduced Seedance 2.0 earlier this week. According to The Wall Street Journal, the upgraded model is currently available in China via ByteDance’s Jianying app, and the company states it will roll it out globally via its CapCut app soon.

Like OpenAI’s Sora and similar tools, Seedance allows users to generate short videos—currently capped at 15 seconds—simply by typing a text prompt. Much like Sora, Seedance quickly attracted criticism for what appears to be a lack of meaningful guardrails to prevent users from generating videos that rely on the likenesses of real people or directly draw on studios’ intellectual property.

After one user on X shared a short clip of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt — which they said was made using “a 2-line prompt in Seedance 2” — “Deadpool” screenwriter Rhett Reese replied, “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”

The Motion Picture Association soon followed with a statement from CEO Charles Rivkin calling on ByteDance to “immediately cease its infringing activity.”

“In a single day, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has engaged in unauthorised use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale,” Rivkin said. “By launching a service that operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement, ByteDance is disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs.”

The Human Artistry Campaign — an initiative supported by Hollywood unions and trade groups — described Seedance 2.0 as “an attack on every creator around the world.” At the same time, SAG-AFTRA said it “stands with the studios in condemning the blatant infringement enabled by Bytedance’s new AI video model Seedance 2.0.”

Seedance-generated videos have also reportedly featured Disney-owned characters such as Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and Grogu — better known as Baby Yoda — triggering legal action. Axios reports that Disney sent ByteDance a cease-and-desist letter accusing it of a “virtual smash-and-grab of Disney’s IP” and alleging that the company is “hijacking Disney’s characters by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters.”

Disney is not necessarily opposed to partnerships with AI companies. While it has reportedly issued a cease-and-desist letter to Google over similar concerns, it has also signed a three-year licensing agreement with OpenAI.

Variety reports that Paramount took similar steps on Saturday by sending ByteDance a cease-and-desist letter. The letter reportedly argued that “much of the content that the Seed Platforms produce contains vivid depictions of Paramount’s famous and iconic franchises and characters” and that the resulting content “is often indistinguishable, both visually and audibly”, from Paramount’s films and TV shows.