TikTok AI videos of Warner Bros.-owned characters like Superman and Batman have been flooding the internet of late, drawing a reaction from the production company. ByteDance’s launch of Seedance 2.0 is a game-changer in AI-generated content creation, prompting numerous AI clips to surface online. The viral videos then caught the attention of Warner Bros. Discovery, who have since sent a cease and desist letter to ByteDance, criticizing them for “blatant infringement.”
Warner Bros. Discovery sends cease and desist letter to ByteDance
Wayne Smith, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Executive Vice President of Legal, recently issued a cease and desist letter to ByteDance’s General Counsel, John Rogovin, who previously worked at WB and WarnerMedia as EVP and General Counsel. In the letter, Smith reminded Rogovin about his former work protecting the copyrights of Superman and Batman. He stressed that those characters are “the lifeblood of the company.”
Smith continued, “ByteDance is now engaged in blatant infringement of the very same properties you spent many years protecting – iconic properties that Warner Bros. Discovery, and its many talented artists and filmmakers, have labored to create over the past decades” (via Deadline).
Furthermore, Warner Bros. Discovery follows Disney and Paramount in sending ByteDance a cease and desist letter. The three companies allied with agencies and groups like CAA, MPA, and SAG-AFTRA to fight against the growing surge of TikTok AI videos showing characters from different franchises or different actors interacting with or fighting each other.
The cease and desist letters come in the wake of Seedance 2.0‘s launch. The text-to-video model, utilizing a unified multi-modal audio-video joint generation architecture with text, audio, video, and image input support, promises “the most comprehensive multimodal content reference and editing capabilities in the industry.”
ByteDance has responded to Disney and Paramount’s letters. Speaking to the BBC, they stressed that they “[respected] intellectual property.” The company added that it was working to “strengthen current safeguards” to stop “unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
However, Smith defended users, stressing in his letter that they weren’t “at the root cause of the infringement.” He further added, “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” (via Variety).
Moreover, in the letter, Smith viewed ByteDance’s statements as promising. He even acknowledged their efforts to block specific text prompts concerning some of WB’s properties. However, he questioned why the guardrails, which he believed could have been implemented quickly, weren’t present during release. Nonetheless, he was firm in the company’s resolve to take “comprehensive efforts” in stopping ByteDance’s “infringement” as soon as possible.
Originally reported by Abdul Azim Naushad on SuperHeroHype.