The emerging use of artificial intelligence is forcing Hollywood to reckon with its potential consequences. The latest episode was prompted by the AI video generator “Seedance 2.0,” a technology from the Chinese tech firm ByteDance, the creator of TikTok. A video produced by Seedance 2.0 featured a 15-second fight scene between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. The remarkably high quality of the video made Hollywood squirm, since anyone can use Seedance 2.0 to create new scenes using copyrighted intellectual property. Several studios sent ByteDance “cease” letters, forbidding them to use their protected IP.
Paramount and Disney were the first two studios to take legal action against ByteDance. Both accused ByteDance of unauthorized downloading of their protected IP to ByteDance’s servers. Netflix and Warner Bros. followed suit quickly thereafter, accusing the Chinese company of being “a high-speed privacy engine” and that they would “not stand by and watch ByteDance treat our valued IP as free, public domain clip art.” The studios could be angling for a similar deal to the one Disney reached with OpenAI’s Sora, in which the studios acquired a $1 billion stake in the AI company to allow their IP to be used within Sora.
