ByteDance, the Chinese technology giant behind TikTok, has reportedly suspended the planned global rollout of its viral AI video generation tool Seedance 2.0, a report has said, adding that this if due to a wave of legal threats from some of Hollywood’s most powerful studios.Citing two people with direct knowledge of the situation, a report by The Information (via news agency Reuters) claimed that the company had been targeting a mid-March global launch for the model. Those plans are now on hold.
What is Seedance 2.0
Seedance 2.0 is ByteDance’s most advanced AI video generation model. It can process various forms of data – text, images, audio and video – simultaneously to produce high-quality video content at a fraction of traditional production costs.
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The AI model quickly became a global sensation after realistic-looking AI-generated videos were shared on social media. It also earned comparisons to DeepSeek – the Chinese AI company whose models stunned the industry by rivalling those of Anthropic and OpenAI, wiping out billions of dollars from Nvidia’s market cap in a day. Tech figures including Elon Musk praised Seedance 2.0’s ability to generate cinematic storylines from just a handful of text prompts.
AI video that attracted ‘warning’ from Hollywood studios
One of the AI-generated videos from Bytedance gained lot of attraction. A user-generated clip showed figures resembling Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt engage in a rooftop fight went viral in China, demonstrating just how convincingly Seedance 2.0 could recreate the look and feel of Hollywood productions. Seedance 2.0 appeared to have been trained on, and capable of replicating, a vast library of copyrighted characters and content without authorisation.This led to swift legal response from multiple directions. Disney was the first to act, sending ByteDance a cease-and-desist letter accusing the company of using its characters from franchise such as Star Wars and Marvel to train and power Seedance 2.0 without permission. Disney alleged ByteDance had pre-packaged the model with a “pirated library” of its copyrighted characters, portraying them as though they were public-domain clip art.Paramount followed with its own cease-and-desist letter, adding to the legal pressure on ByteDance from the traditional film industry. Then came Netflix. In perhaps the most pointed letter of the three, the streaming giant described Seedance 2.0 as “a high-speed piracy engine” capable of replicating copyrighted content at scale.
What ByteDance has to say
ByteDance acknowledged the controversy in a statement, saying the company “respects intellectual property rights” and had “heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0.”“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” a spokesperson said previously.
