Netflix, Studios Take Aim At Seedance 2.0 AI

Netflix is the latest to join several studios condemning the Chinese company ByteDance over its Seedance 2.0 AI service for “enabling copyright infringement”.

Netflix sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that the Chinese company remove Netflix’s intellectual property – including the likes of “Stranger Things” and “Bridgerton” – from training datasets and to establish guardrails to prevent further infringement.

In a statement, Netflix’s director of litigation, Mindy LeMoine, says “Seedance acts as a high-speed piracy engine”.

It follows on from similar steps by Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros., who have each accused the company of stealing its most valuable IP.

Released last week, the new generative AI model came to attention with a short clip of a fight between actors Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Unlike past models, the new one is able to blend video and audio relatively seamlessly.

The AI was quickly denounced after release by the Motion Picture Association for copyright infringement, with studios quickly following suit and sending cease-and-desist letters. The Netflix one, however, is the first to explicitly threaten litigation.

ByteDance said on Monday that it would impose additional guardrails to prevent unauthorised uses of copyrights and actors’ likenesses by Seedance users.

Source: Variety