Chinese technology giant ByteDance has vowed to add better safeguards to its viral artificial intelligence video generator Seedance 2.0, after clips it produced featuring American actors and performers triggered huge backlash from Hollywood.
Videos generated via Seedance 2.0 have been the rage in China since the model was released last week, with users praising its high quality output and an ability to produce cinematic storylines with just a few prompts.
In one video, rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian were seen singing in Mandarin.
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Another featured AI-generated versions of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in a short but elaborate fight scene. “You killed Jeffrey Epstein, you animal,” Pitt tells Cruise during a bloody brawl.
Jeffrey Epstein knew too much pic.twitter.com/12u8PQH9nt
— Ruairi Robinson (@RuairiRobinson) February 11, 2026
One YouTube user also posted a clip showing an AI likeness of actress Kristen Stewart running through a hospital lobby in an attempt to escape a zombie, with old-school Hollywood-style action music playing in the background.
Similarly, one filmmaker posted on X a clip featuring the AI likeness of comedian Larry David in a sketch he said was generated with a single one-line prompt.
Another clip featured Star Wars actors Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman reprising their characters from the movie, ironically in a sketch criticising the global push to build more data centres to enable AI.
Seedance 2.0
Prompt: Sum up the AI discourse in a meme – make sure it’s retarded and gets 50 likes. pic.twitter.com/09yPdo3Tjy
— Charles Curran (@charliebcurran) February 14, 2026
Swiss-based consultancy CTOL Digital Solutions said the model was “surpassing OpenAI’s Sora 2 and Google’s Veo 3.1 in practical testing”.
It is “the most advanced AI video generation model available,” the group said.
‘Blatant infringement’ of intellectual property
The extent of detail in the generated videos, along with the model’s ability to develop dialogues and storylines without requiring an elaborate prompt, has led many users to compare Seedance with DeepSeek — China’s breakthrough open-source AI model that rattled Silicon Valley a year ago.
In Seedance’s case, though, it was Hollywood that was unnerved.
On Friday, The Walt Disney Company sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, accusing the Chinese firm of using Disney characters to train and develop Seedance 2.0 without permission or compensation, according to a report by Axios.
Separately, Reuters reported that Disney accused ByteDance of pre-packaging Seedance with a pirated library of copyrighted characters from franchises including Star Wars and Marvel. The video generator was portraying them as if they were public-domain clip art, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The letter alleged Seedance was reproducing, distributing and creating derivative works featuring Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and other characters, the person added.
In statements to AFP and Reuters, ByteDance acknowledged the concerns around Seedance 2.0 and said it “respects intellectual property rights”.
The company said it was “taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
It did not, however, elaborate on the measures it was taking.
‘Nothing short of terrifying’
Aside from Disney, Paramount Skydance also sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance, accusing the firm of engaging in “blatant infringement” of its intellectual property, Variety reported.
A key American lobby representing film studios, the Motion Picture Association, also accused Seedance of “unauthorised use of US copyrighted works on a massive scale,” according to AFP.
MPA chairman Charles Rivkin — representing heavyweights like Disney, Universal, Warner and Netflix — said ByteDance’s new AI model “operates without meaningful safeguards against infringement” and “should immediately cease”.
The American actors’ union SAG-AFTRA also condemned “the blatant infringement” and unauthorised use of its members’ voices and likenesses enabled by Seedance 2.0.
Popular scriptwriter Rhett Reese told The New York Times in an interview that the viral Pitt-Cruise fight scene had “sent a cold shiver up his spine.”
“I just think it’s nothing short of terrifying… I could just see it costing jobs all over the place,” he said.
- Vishakha Saxena
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