Warner Bros. has joined a parade of studios in blasting ByteDance for “blatant infringement” on its new AI video service, accusing the Chinese company of facilitating user-generated knockoffs of its iconic characters.
The studio’s legal counsel fired off a letter on Tuesday to John Rogovin, the general counsel of ByteDance who happens to have previously worked as general counsel at Warner Bros. The letter takes note of Rogovin’s prior service in defense of the copyrights of Superman and Batman.
“These characters are the lifeblood of the company,” wrote Wayne Smith, the executive VP of legal at Warner Bros. Studios. “ByteDance is now engaged in blatant infringement of the very same properties you spent many years protecting.”
Warner Bros. demanded that ByteDance cease training on its characters and implement guardrails to prevent further infringement.
ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, released Seedance 2.0 last week, announcing it represents a “substantial leap in generation quality” over the prior versions. Within days, social media sites were flooded with cinematic-looking clips of Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt, Batman fighting Spider-Man, Superman fighting Thanos, and other permutations.
Users also posted “alternate endings” to films and TV shows, including one of the HBO series “Game of Thrones.”
The Motion Picture Association and SAG-AFTRA quickly denounced the new platform, while Disney and Paramount sent cease and desist letters last week. On Monday, ByteDance pledged to implement additional safeguards “as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
That promise did not satisfy Warner Bros., which said in its letter that the focus on users is misplaced.
“[T]he users are not the ones at the root cause of the infringement,” Smith wrote. “They are merely building on the foundation of infringement already laid by ByteDance as Seedance comes pre-loaded with Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrighted characters. That was a deliberate design choice by ByteDance.”
The letter cites posts on X, formerly Twitter, that include Seedance videos of characters from “The Matrix,” “The Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter,” “Rick and Morty,” and “Game of Thrones.” It also cites fight scenes involving Batman, Catwoman, and Superman.
Warner Bros. acknowledges that ByteDance appears to be taking steps to block text prompts involving its characters.
“While this is a promising indication that we may resolve this dispute business to business, it nonetheless begs the question why guardrails that can so quickly and easily be implemented were not present upon Seedance’s release,” the letter states.