News: Hollywood vs ByteDance Seedance 2.0 Stalemate
The confrontation between Hollywood and ByteDance over the Chinese tech giant's AI video generator Seedance 2.0 has entered a tense stalemate. The MPA's February 27 deadline for ByteDance to explain its copyright mitigation efforts has come and gone, but no formal lawsuits have been filed. Instead, the dispute remains at the cease-and-desist stage, with studios weighing their legal options while ByteDance pledges unspecified "safeguards" that the industry views as inadequate. The situation escalated further in late February when a viral AI-generated video depicting "Tom Cruise" fighting "Brad Pitt" spread across social media, prompting the MPA to denounce what it called "massive infringement" of celebrity likenesses. SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union, condemned the "blatant infringement" of its members' voices and likenesses, adding labor organizing muscle to Hollywood's legal campaign. Six major studios — Disney, Paramount, Netflix, Sony, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Universal — have sent individual cease-and-desist letters, with Netflix threatening "immediate litigation." Yet three weeks after the initial confrontation, the gap between threats and action raises questions about the practical challenges of enforcing U.S. copyright law against a China-based technology company.