ByteDance, a Chinese company that has just completed the sale of TikTok business operations in the US (still holding shares in the new joint venture), launched Seedance 2.0 earlier this week.
According to US media, the updated model is now available to Chinese users on ByteDance's Jianying application, and the company said it will soon be available to global users when users use CapCut.
Similar to tools like OpenAI's Sora, Seedance allows users to create videos (currently limited to 15 seconds) just by entering a paragraph of text. And like Sora, Seedance quickly received much criticism for lacking clear protections for the ability to create videos using real-life images, as well as the intellectual property of film studios.
After a X social network user posted a short video showing Tom Cruise fighting with Brad Pitt, which this person claimed was created by "a two-line command in Seedance 2", "Deadpool" screenwriter Rhett Reese responded: "I'm very sorry to say this. Maybe it's all over for us".
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) quickly issued a statement from CEO Charles Rivkin requesting ByteDance to "immediately stop copyright infringement activities".
Mr. Rivkin said: "In just one day, the Seedance 2.0 artificial intelligence service illegally used US copyrighted works on a large scale. By launching a service that operates without effective protection against copyright infringement, ByteDance is disregarding the well-established copyright law, which protects the rights of creators and is the foundation of millions of jobs in the US".
In response, Bytedance announced that it had stopped the ability to create real-life video clips. But with the difficulties OpenAI is still facing with its own video creation tool, the effectiveness of this company's control method remains to be seen.
In addition to allowing users to create surreal videos about celebrities, Rivkin also accused the company of condoning rampant copyright infringement.
In other developments, the Human Artistry Campaign - an initiative supported by Hollywood unions and trade groups - condemned Seedance 2.0 as "an attack on all creators around the world", while the actors' union SAG-AFTRA said they "stand on the side of film studios in condemning the blatant infringement created by Bytedance's new AI video model Seedance 2.0".
