Netflix Threatens ByteDance With ‘Immediate Litigation’ Over Seedance 2.0 AI Clips

Netflix threatened ByteDance with “immediate litigation” on Tuesday, joining three other studios that have condemned the company for enabling copyright infringement via its Seedance 2.0 AI service.

Netflix sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that the Chinese company remove its intellectual property from training datasets and establish guardrails to prevent further infringement.

“Seedance acts as a high-speed piracy engine, generating mass quantities of unauthorized derivative works utilizing Netflix’s iconic characters, worlds, and scripted narratives,” wrote Mindy LeMoine, director of litigation. “Netflix will not stand by and watch ByteDance treat our valued IP as free, public domain clip art.”

ByteDance was given three days to respond.

The move followed similar steps by Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros., each of which accused the company of stealing its most valuable IP. Netflix accused ByteDance of enabling infringement of “Stranger Things,” “KPop Demon Hunters,” “Squid Game” and “Bridgerton.”

In the case of “Bridgerton,” the letter alleges that videos are circulating that show unauthorized depictions of costumes from Season 4 in a masquerade ball setting.

“These outputs mirror specific, narratively important costumes like Sophie Baek’s ‘Lady in Silver’ gown,” LeMoine wrote. “ByteDance has even promoted this content using #Bridgerton tags via its own official social media channels, such as @BytePlusGlobal.”

Netflix also cited videos that are circulating of the “Stranger Things” series finale, “which feature detailed
reproductions of the iconic cast as well as the monsters from the series, including Demogorgons and the Mindflayer.”

Users have also created “unauthorized crossovers, such as inserting real-world figures like Elon Musk into the Squid Game environment,” the letter states. It also alleges that users have made video clips reproducing the visual style and character design of “KPop Demon Hunters,” including the lead character, Rumi.

In response to the furor, ByteDance said on Monday that it would impose additional guardrails to prevent unauthorized uses of copyrights and actors’ likenesses by Seedance users. Those assurances have not been enough for Warner Bros. or Netflix, both of which sent letters on Tuesday.

The Netflix letter was the first to explicitly threaten litigation. The letter also sought to preempt a “fair use” defense, arguing that “use of copyrighted works to create a competing commercial product, especially one that regurgitates the original, is not protected by fair use.”

Seedance 2.0 appears to mark a significant advance over prior AI video generators, mixing video and audio relatively seamlessly using only a few prompts.