Bytedance's Seedance 2.0 is so good at copying Disney characters the company calls it a "virtual smash-and-grab"

Bytedance's Seedance 2.0 generates Hollywood characters so convincingly that Disney, SAG-AFTRA, and major creative organizations are pushing back hard. But enforcing copyright against a Chinese company may be nearly impossible.

According to Axios, Disney sent Bytedance a cease-and-desist letter on Friday. The charge: Seedance 2.0 basically ships "with a pirated library of Disney's copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel, and other Disney franchises, as if Disney's coveted intellectual property were free public domain clip art." Disney lawyer David Singer called it a "virtual smash-and-grab" of the company's intellectual property.

Users are already flooding social media with Seedance-generated videos. One example that's been circulating for days: a "Lord of the Rings in 15 seconds" short that shows just how easily the tool can recreate protected characters and worlds with stunning realism.

The actors' union SAG-AFTRA, which represents about 160,000 actors, voice actors, stunt performers, and other media professionals, also condemned Seedance 2.0. The union says the tool uses its members' voices and likenesses without consent, putting their livelihoods at risk.

Seedance 2.0 ignores laws, ethics, industry standards, and basic principles of consent, according to the union. "This is unacceptable and undercuts the ability of human talent to earn a livelihood," SAG-AFTRA wrote.

The Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition of dozens of creative organizations including SAG-AFTRA and the Directors Guild of America, called on authorities to "use every legal tool at their disposal to stop this wholesale theft." According to Axios, the Motion Picture Association also demanded that Bytedance "immediately cease its infringing activity."

Disney fights AI companies in court, but plays both sides

The cease-and-desist letter is part of Disney's broader legal campaign against AI companies. The company has already sued Midjourney and Chinese AI company MiniMax and has successfully gone after Character.AI and Google.

But Disney isn't fighting generative AI itself, unlike SAG-AFTRA, whose primary concern is protecting workers' rights and the arts. Disney is happy to embrace AI when it's on the company's terms: it works directly with OpenAI, signed on as the first major licensing partner for OpenAI's Sora video platform, and has put a billion dollars into OpenAI.

Going after Bytedance legally is likely to be much harder. Copyright lawyer Andres Guadamuz points out that Bytedance no longer has a known US presence after its forced exit from the country. While Bytedance could technically be sued, the company could just ignore the lawsuit. A default judgment would be worthless unless it can be enforced in a country where Bytedance actually holds assets, Guadamuz writes.

Chinese courts have historically been unwilling to enforce US copyright claims, and even when judgments do come down there, penalties tend to be minimal. According to Guadamuz, this gets at one of the biggest problems with trying to rein in AI development through copyright law: Chinese models operate largely outside the reach of Western legal systems.