A new AI video model from China has flooded the internet with copyrighted content — causing so much backlash that its owner, ByteDance, has promised to “strengthen current safeguards.”
Over the past week, Seedance 2.0 made waves in tech circles as one of the most advanced video models ever released, putting it in direct competition with the likes of OpenAI’s Sora 2, Google’s Veo 3.1 and Kuaishou’s Kling 3.0.
Launched last week as the latest version of ByteDance’s AI video generation model, Seedance 2.0 is currently available primarily to mainland Chinese users through its Jimeng AI app. It is not yet officially available outside China, but will soon also be integrated into ByteDance’s CapCut, a popular video editor for TikTok users around the world.
Beijing-based ByteDance also owns the global version of TikTok. The U.S. version of the popular short-form video app is now majority-owned by American investors, though ByteDance retained a partial stake.
Almost immediately upon the model’s release, Seedance began trending online as user-made videos stirred a mix of astonishment and concern on platforms like X and Reddit. One clip of Brad Pitt fistfighting Tom Cruise, which showed the two verbally sparring about Jeffrey Epstein, accrued more than 3.2 million views on X.
Another version of the fistfight took only a “2 line prompt” to generate, according to Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson, who shared the clip. “Deadpool” screenwriter Rhett Reese expressed his unease online, responding on X: “I hate to say it. It’s likely over for us.”
Reese clarified in a follow-up post that he’s “terrified” about AI’s increasing “encroach[ment] into creative endeavors.”
“I was blown away by the Pitt v Cruise video because it is so professional. That’s exactly why I’m scared,” Reese wrote. “My glass half empty view is that Hollywood is about to be revolutionized/decimated. If you truly think the Pitt v Cruise video is unimpressive slop, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But I’m shook.”
The launch of Seedance 2.0, and the immediate panic it stirred within the film and TV industry, has created what some online described as Hollywood’s “Deepseek moment.”
The Chinese large language model Deepseek tanked Silicon Valley stocks last year after it outperformed major American AI companies on multiple benchmarks. Now, a Chinese video model is causing similar alarm in the world of AI video, both for the relative sophistication of its output and its ability to churn out content that in some instances appears to use copyrighted material.
One AI content creator shared a side-by-side comparison of a clip from the 2025 film “F1” and a near-exact copy generated by Seedance, claiming the AI model “remade the most expensive shot … for 9 cents.” Others shared a slew of clips appearing to feature copyrighted intellectual property, including characters from the “One Piece” and “Dragon Ball” anime franchises, the League of Legends-based animated series “Arcane” and the martial arts classic “Ip Man.”
Actor Scott Adkins appeared to catch his own likeness in one Seedance-generated video of a man fleeing a crowd.
“I don’t remember shooting this! Must’ve slipped my mind 🤔,” he responded in an X post.
Shortly after the model’s viral launch, Charles Rivkin, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association, accused Seedance 2.0 of “engag[ing] in unauthorized use of U.S. copyrighted works on a massive scale.”
“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,” Rivkin wrote in a statement. “ByteDance should immediately cease its infringing activity.”
Disney and Paramount Skydance have also reportedly issued cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance, accusing Seedance of infringing on their copyrighted works. (NBC News has not reviewed the letters; however, a source familiar with the matter confirmed Axios’ reporting that Disney sent a cease-and-desist.)
Disney and Paramount did not provide comments when asked outside normal business hours.
ByteDance told NBC News in an email that the company is addressing the concerns.
“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,” a spokesperson wrote. “We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
The statement came after the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA similarly condemned the “blatant infringement enabled by Bytedance’s new AI video model Seedance 2.0.”
“The infringement includes the unauthorized use of our members’ voices and likenesses. This is unacceptable and undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood,” SAG-AFTRA wrote. “Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent. Responsible AI development demands responsibility, and that is nonexistent here.”
The Human Artistry Campaign, a global coalition of more than dozens of organizations representing creatives, also called Seedance 2.0’s launch “an attack on every creator around the world.” In a social media statement, it called on authorities to “use every legal tool at their disposal to stop this wholesale theft.
The controversy is reminiscent of concerns that erupted during the launch of OpenAI’s Sora 2 last fall, which enabled users to generate the likenesses of copyrighted characters from James Bond to Pikachu to Nintendo’s Mario and Luigi. Within a few months, Disney struck a three-year deal with OpenAI allowing Sora to use its IP.
