They said the company'has shown it is willing to... steal the intellectual property ofAmerican creators.' After ByteDance suspended the global rollout of its new Seedance 2.0 AI video generator on the weekend, US senators have now told the company to immediately shut down the app. Seedance 2.0 poses a direct threat to the American intellectual property system and, more broadly, to the constitutional rights and economic livelihoods of our creative community, Senators Marsha Blackburn and Peter Welch wrote in a letter to the company . Responsible global companies follow the law and respect core economic rights, including intellectual property and personal likeness protections, the senators wrote. They cited Seedance AI examples including an AI generated Thanos and Superman battle, a rewritten ending and that famous (fake) Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt battle .

A new artificial intelligence (AI) model developed by the Chinese company behind TikTok rocked Hollywood this week - not just because of what it can do, but what it could mean for creative industries. Created by tech giant ByteDance, Seedance 2.0 can generate cinema-quality video, complete with sound effects and dialogue, from just a few written prompts. Many of the clips said to have been made using Seedance, and featuring popular characters like Spider-Man and Deadpool, went viral. What is Seedance - and why the stir? Seedance was launched to little fanfare in June 2025 but it is the second version that came eight months later that has caused a major stir.

ByteDance's new AI video tool Seedance 2.0 can generate videos based on just a few lines of text. ByteDance's new AI video tool Seedance 2.0 can generate videos based on just a few lines of text. Videos created by new Seedance 2.0 generator go viral, including one of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting Mon 16 Feb 2026 03.25 ESTLast modified on Mon 16 Feb 2026 03.29 EST ByteDance, the Chinese technology company behind TikTok, has said it will restrain its AI video-making tool, after threats of legal action from Disney and a backlash from other media businesses, according to reports. The AI video generator Seedance 2.0, released last week, has spooked Hollywood as users create realistic clips of movie stars and superheroes with just a short text prompt. On Friday, Walt Disney reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance which accused it of supplying Seedance with a "pirated library" of the studio's characters, including those from Marvel and Star Wars, according to the US news outlet Axios. Disney's lawyers claimed that ByteDance committed a "virtual smash-and-grab" of their intellectual property, according to a report from the BBC.

Hollywood studios take aim at'ultra-realistic' AI video tool The MPA represents the major US studios - Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros Discovery. The content referenced was created as part of a limited pre-launch testing phase, it said. The AI tool can quickly make highly realistic clips from a short, simple text prompt, such as a fist fight between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, Will Smith battling a red-eyed spaghetti monster or even Friends characters reimagined as otters. ByteDance should immediately cease its infringing activity. According to ByteDance, steps are being taken to further address risks, and it will implement robust policies, monitoring mechanisms and processes to ensure compliance with local regulations.