Warner Bros. joined a parade of studios accusing ByteDance of “blatant infringement” on its new AI video service, accusing the Chinese company of facilitating user-created copies of its iconic characters.
The studio’s general counsel sent a letter Tuesday to ByteDance’s general counsel, John Rogovin, who happens to previously serve as general counsel at Warner Bros. The letter cites Rogovin’s past work defending the copyrights of Superman and Batman.
“These characters are the lifeblood of our company,” wrote Wayne Smith, executive vice president of legal affairs at Warner Bros. Studios. “ByteDance is now engaged in a blatant violation of the very same assets you have spent years protecting.”
Warner Bros. demanded that ByteDance stop training the characters and put in place guardrails to prevent further infringement.
TikTok owner ByteDance released Seedance 2.0 last week, announcing “significant generational quality improvements” compared to previous versions. Within days, social media sites were flooded with clips from movies like Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt, Batman fighting Spider-Man, and Superman fighting Thanos.
Users also posted “alternate endings” for movies and TV shows, including one of the HBO series, “Game of Thrones.”
The Motion Picture Association of America and SAG-AFTRA quickly condemned the new platform, and Disney and Paramount sent cease-and-desist letters last week. ByteDance on Monday pledged to introduce additional safeguards “to prevent unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by our users.”
The letter said the promise did not satisfy Warner Bros. and that its focus on users was misplaced.
“Users are not the root cause of breaches,” Smith wrote. “Since Seedance comes pre-loaded with copyrighted characters from Warner Bros. Discovery, they are simply building on the foundation of infringement already laid by ByteDance. This was a deliberate design choice by ByteDance.”
The letter cites posts on X (formerly Twitter) that include Seadance videos of characters from The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Rick and Morty and Game of Thrones. Also cited are fight scenes between Batman, Catwoman, and Superman.
Warner Bros. has confirmed that ByteDance appears to be taking steps to block text prompts about its characters.
“While this is a promising sign that this dispute may be resolved in a corporate dispute, it still begs the question why guardrails that could be implemented so quickly and easily did not exist at the time of Seadance’s release,” the letter states.
