On Thursday, February 12, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) condemned the Chinese AI video tool Seedance 2.0 for “massive” copyright infringement.
In a statement, the association said, “Just one day after its launch, the Chinese AI service Seedance 2.0 has been extensively using unauthorized copyrighted works from the United States.”
Seedance 2.0 is a new AI video tool recently introduced by the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, that can quickly produce highly realistic video clips based on short text prompts.
The MPA demanded Seedance to “immediately cease” copyright infringement and stop using clips based on existing movies and TV shows.
The MPA represents major U.S. film studios including Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Amazon Prime Video, MGM Studios, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, Disney Studios, and Warner Bros Discovery Channel.
Currently, a video generated by Seedance 2.0 featuring American action stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop quickly went viral on social media platforms due to its realistic appearance.
Many video clips are sourced from real actors, TV shows, and movies. Other generated videos include segments based on works such as “The Lord of the Rings,” “Game of Thrones,” “The Avengers,” and “Breaking Bad.”
MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin stated, “The service introduced by ByteDance lacks effective measures to prevent infringement, disregarding established copyright laws that protect creators’ rights and sustain millions of American jobs.”
“ByteDance should immediately stop the infringement,” he added.
ByteDance mentioned that they are taking steps to address the risks further and will implement strong policies, monitoring mechanisms, and processes to ensure compliance with local regulations.
ByteDance stated that Seedance 2.0 has temporarily suspended the feature allowing users to upload real human images, respects intellectual property and copyright protection, and takes any potential infringement seriously.
The statement also mentioned that the content referred to was created as part of a limited pre-release testing phase.
In the fall of 2025, after OpenAI released Sora 2, the MPA expressed concerns about a large number of AI infringement incidents.
Subsequently, OpenAI responded to the concerns and implemented several safeguard measures, significantly increasing the difficulty for users to infringe on studio copyrights. Later, Disney reached an agreement with OpenAI, authorizing the use of 200 characters in Sora 2. Many believe this could serve as a template for other studios to follow.
However, it is currently unclear whether ByteDance will accept this approach.
The introduction of the Chinese AI video tool has immediately raised alarms in Hollywood and other areas. Rhett Reese, the screenwriter of “Deadpool,” warned, “Our business might end here.”
“Soon, a person sitting in front of a computer could create a work indistinguishable from the movies now released by Hollywood,” he commented on the AI video of Cruise and Pitt fighting, expressing “shock” at the quality of the AI videos.
“I pessimistically believe that Hollywood is on the verge of a revolution/destruction,” he added.
Heather Anne Campbell, who has written for “Saturday Night Live” and “Rick and Morty,” reassured not to worry.
She posted on Bluesky that these videos are like fan fiction, and original ideas are the hardest first step.
“Anyone can make the latest AI visualization engines, like Seedance—they are given complete creative freedom to create whatever they want—but the result is that they are all producing fan fiction,” she wrote. “Such as ‘Breaking Bad new scene’ or ‘live-action Goku,’ and so on.”
Fan fiction refers to the secondary creation using elements such as characters, storylines, or background settings from existing comics, animation, novels, or film and television works.
“Even with an unlimited budget to produce lifelike TV shows, movies, or animations, creating something new still seems challenging. Because original ideas are the hardest,” she added.