Sony Pictures Entertainment has joined in on Hollywood’s barrage of cease-and-desist letters against ByteDance, which released its AI video-generating software Seedance 2.0 with the ability to create footage with copyrighted characters from top studios and their intellectual property.
“The model generates outputs that closely mimic SPE content and/or incorporate well-known characters and other copyright-protected elements of SPE works,” Sony EVP and general counsel Jill Ratner wrote. “Within days of Seedance 2.0’s launch, infringing outputs reportedly generated by the model were disseminated at scale across social media platforms.”
Sony has joined Disney, Paramount, Netflix and Warner Bros. in demanding that ByteDance remove the ability to produce and distribute AI-generated videos with their characters. The Motion Picture Association and SAG-AFTRA have also condemned the release of Seedance 2.0 without proper copyright guardrails.
“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” ByteDance has said in response to the wave of legal backlash.
But that hasn’t been enough for the Hollywood studios, including Sony, which claimed that ByteDance should never have released Seedance 2.0 without copyright guardrails in place.
“While SPE is aware of ByteDance’s recent public statements regarding the belated implementation of guardrails, ByteDance’s deliberate decision to release SeedDance 2.0 without appropriate guardrails is telling,” the studio’s letter reads. “SPE will not tolerate delayed or half-baked measures.”
