Chinese technology giant ByteDance has vowed to rein in its controversial artificial intelligence (AI) video creation tool following threats of lawsuits from Disney and complaints from other entertainment giants.
In recent days, videos created with the latest version of the app Seedance have exploded online. Many have praised it for its realism.
However, the trend is also Concerns arose among several Hollywood studios, who blamed the creators of the AI platform Copyright infringement.
On Friday, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, accusing it of providing SeaDance with a “pirated library” of the studio’s copyrighted characters, including characters from Marvel and Star Wars.
Disney’s lawyers accused ByteDance of “effectively usurping” its intellectual property, including Marvel superheroes, Star Wars characters and various animations.
On Monday, ByteDance told the BBC that the company “respects intellectual property rights and has heard your concerns about SeaDance 2.0.”
“We are taking steps to strengthen our current safeguards to prevent unauthorized use of our intellectual property and likeness by our users.”
ByteDance did not respond to questions seeking details about the safety measures it plans to introduce.
Like other generative AI tools, Seedance can generate videos from short text prompts.
Many of Seedance’s clips feature real actors and shows, and some have gone viral since the latest version 2.0 was released on February 12th.
The BBC has discovered online clips purportedly made by Seadance that show Star Wars characters Anakin Skywalker and Rey having a lightsaber battle, and Spider-Man battling Captain America on the streets of New York.
The company hasn’t disclosed what data it uses to train Seedance.
ByteDance previously said the product had already stopped the ability for users to upload images of real people.
The company also said it respects intellectual property rights and copyright protection and takes potential infringements seriously.
Disney’s legal threat follows criticism from other Hollywood organizations over the SeaDance platform.
The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents major US studios such as Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Netflix, called for an “immediate cessation of infringing activity” on the tool.
Actors union SAG-AFTRA also accused SeaDance of “blatant rights violations.”
Meanwhile, after a video of a popular Japanese anime character generated by AI was leaked online, the Japanese government launched an investigation into a Chinese company on suspicion of copyright infringement.
Other AI image generation tools have also been subject to legal action.
Last year, Disney and NBCUniversal filed a lawsuit alleging that the AI image generation platform Midjourney generated “unlimited unauthorized copies” of the studios’ copyrighted works. The case is ongoing.
Disney also asked Google to restrict the creation of characters on Google’s AI platform.
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