Hollywood
ByteDance & Hollywood group strike pact to strengthen AI copyright safeguards
Seedance and Seedream face tighter protections after studios raised IP concerns
NEW DELHI: ByteDance is putting a tighter lock on its AI creations. The TikTok parent and the Motion Picture Association have signed an agreement to strengthen copyright safeguards across the company’s generative AI video and image models, following months of concerns from Hollywood studios over the use of protected intellectual property.
The agreement covers ByteDance’s Seedance video-generation model and Seedream image-generation model, which are available through services including TikTok, CapCut and Dreamina.
The deal follows a cease-and-desist letter sent by the MPA to ByteDance in February after studios raised concerns about the AI tools’ ability to generate content featuring copyrighted film and television characters without authorisation.
Disney and other major studios had also flagged the potential for the models to produce unauthorised depictions of copyrighted characters and celebrity likenesses.
The concerns came as AI-generated video tools became increasingly capable of producing realistic clips featuring recognisable entertainment properties. For Hollywood, that raised a familiar question in a new format: who owns the rights when an AI model can recreate a character or likeness at the click of a button?
ByteDance said newer versions of Seedance and Seedream already include stronger intellectual-property protections. The company and the MPA said they would continue working together on safeguards as generative AI technology evolves.
The agreement marks a more collaborative approach after the MPA’s earlier challenge, with the focus shifting towards building protections into AI systems rather than relying solely on enforcement after potentially infringing content has been created.
The pact also comes as entertainment companies and technology firms grapple with broader questions around copyright, training data and the use of protected creative works in generative AI.
For ByteDance, the agreement could help address concerns from Hollywood while allowing it to continue developing AI-powered creation tools across its growing ecosystem. For the MPA and its member studios, it offers a route to strengthen protections around film and television intellectual property as generative AI becomes more sophisticated.
Both sides said the collaboration would continue, signalling that the copyright debate around AI is far from its final frame.
