ByteDance halts AI video generator rollout after Hollywood copyright disputes spark legal action

ByteDance has reportedly suspended the global rollout of its new AI video generator

A month after Seedance 2.0's launch in China sparked cease-and-desist letters from Disney and Paramount Skydance over its use of copyrighted materials, its developer ByteDance has reportedly hit pause on the release of the AI video tool in other regions. According to The Information, which spoke to two anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter, ByteDance has suspended Seedance 2.0's global rollout. Engadget has reached out to ByteDance for comment and will update this story if we hear back with more information. Seedance 2.0 caught heat from Hollywood studios almost immediately upon its release, after user-generated videos including a viral AI clip of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise sparked concerns that copyrighted works were used in training the model. In February, ByteDance told the BBC that it is "taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users." It's unclear when exactly ByteDance planned to release the tool more widely.

ByteDance's Controversial AI Video Model Reportedly on Hold Globally Due to Copyright Disputes

If you have your heart set on AI-generating some John Wick-style action scenes starring celebrities with weird voices, we have some bad news. If you've been waiting anxiously to try out ByteDance's new video model Seedance 2.0, but you don't have the necessary prerequisitesâ€"a phone number with the +86 country code and an account on a Chinese ByteDance platformâ€"it looks like you'll just have to keep waiting. According to two anonymous leakers who spoke to the Information, the global release of Seedance 2.0 is on hold amid legal action from movie studios and streaming services. When it was initially released, Seedance 2.0 appeared to have few if any protections in place to prevent users from generating videos appearing to star celebrities, copyrighted characters, and celebrities as copyrighted characters. As I noted last month, this model is just the latest of many to trigger copyright disputes that only seem to help them make a splashâ€"this time most prominently from Disney, which has a content partnership with ByteDance competitor OpenAI. Every new generative model that goes viral seems to have a particularly eyebrow-raising use case, such as the Ghibli memes that followed the release of OpenAI's GPT-4o. In the case of Seedance 2.0, that use case has largely been John Wick-style action scenes that hold together with C-minus physics and continuity (instead of the F-minus physics and continuity we've come to expect). In one famous instance, an X user posted a Seedance 2.0 video that appeared to show a knock-down-drag out between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Another clip with Cruise and Pitt turned the fight into a Jeffrey Epstein reference, and was notable for drawing attention to the model's shaky grasp on celebrity voice mimicry. Deadpool writer Rhett Reese said, according to the New York Times, “For all of us who work in the industry and devoted our careers and lives to it, I just think it’s nothing short of terrifying,†adding, “I could just see it costing jobs all over the place.†A little over a week ago, a Reddit account associated with the AI cloud company Atlas Cloud provided what it claimed was some detail straight from ByteDance about the public availability of Seedance 2.0. The release was meant to be "before mid-March, but no confirmed date yet." And that account noted the same thing as the Information: that the ByteDance team is "still finalizing content restriction and copyright compliance work, so the timeline depends on that." Gizmodo reached out to ByteDance for a statement, and will update if we hear back.

ByteDance puts video AI launch on hold after copyright disputes - The Information By Investing.com

Investing.com -- ByteDance has put on hold the ⁠global launch of its latest video-generation model, Seedance 2.0, after a series ⁠of copyright disputes with major Hollywood studios and streaming platforms, The Information reported ⁠on Saturday, citing ⁠two people familiar with the matter. The pause highlights growing legal and regulatory scrutiny facing AI developers, particularly around how training data is sourced. Several technology companies developing generative AI models have faced lawsuits and complaints from media companies that argue their content has been used without permission.