Saro McKenna is the CEO of Dacoco GmbH and cofounder of Alien Worlds.
A viral clip of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting on a rooftop showed us where the hands have come on the clock with AI-generated content.
The hyperrealistic 15-second clip, created by Irish director Ruairi Robinson using a two-line prompt punched into Seedance 2.0, perfectly illustrated how easy it has become to produce Hollywood-tier content using artificial intelligence. And it raises a pertinent question: Is it time to hand IP management to the community?
AI Killed The Video Star
Pitt vs. Cruise sparked the latest AI cause célèbre, with Deadpool scriptwriter Rhett Reese predicting (paywall) the tool would “cost jobs all over the place.” Inevitably, users were soon spinning up alternate endings for Game of Thrones and pitting Jackie Chan against Bruce Lee in a dispute over ketchup.
Predictably, Disney sent ByteDance a cease-and-desist letter claiming the Chinese company had hijacked its iconic creations “by reproducing, distributing, and creating derivative works featuring those characters.”
That sound? Pandora’s Box snapping open, and film studios and other stewards of intellectual property (IP) scrambling to preserve their cherished copyrighted works. The press release announcing the launch of Seedance vowed to let users “control their creations like a true director.” But what about other people’s creations?
Safeguarding IP In The Age Of AI
ByteDance, which owns TikTok and Seedance, promised to strengthen safeguards to “prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property,” but this reassurance rings hollow.
If ordinary users can access powerful AI tools to produce slick scenes that previously existed only in their imagination, they’ll do it. And they’ll go to great lengths to bring their favorite actors, characters and worlds to life—guardrails be damned. The AI content onslaught will cause headaches for IP stewards everywhere. Seedance 2.0 is one of many powerful tools that can deliver epic visuals at scale, fast. These tools won’t regress, they’ll improve.
As Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei suggested, “Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it.” As access to quality generative AI tools increases, a tsunami of content will be unleashed, and IPs could quickly spiral out of control. Which is why we should think hard about how best to manage and control IP in the AI age.
Could Blockchains Play A Role In IP Consensus?
Communities ought to be empowered to take the IP management reins, not central actors who cannot possibly scale enforcement fast enough to manage, much less contain, the threat.
The fact that Hollywood’s big players were blindsided by Seedance proves just how good these tools are and how ill-equipped the old guard are to defend against them. So why would the community fare better? Well, if literally everyone has the power to create convincing cinematic productions featuring characters from the annals of film, gaming and literature, why wouldn’t you leverage the crowd to manage what’s considered “official”?
It’s analogous to trusting the community to enforce Bitcoin’s consensus rules. There is no executive branch upholding the blockchain’s trustworthiness. Rather, nodes (users) reject blocks that do not meet consensus rules and, in so doing, keep the network healthy. If a collective dissents, they can fork the network (see Bitcoin Cash).
We have come a long way from glitchy prompt outputs to Hollywood-level choreography, lighting and audio, so the idea that studio execs will bury the GenAI genie through cease-and-desist letters and copyright finger-wagging is unrealistic. It’s easier to envisage legal and ethical questions piling up as IP-busting videos roll off the production line.
If we assume that IP can no longer be centrally controlled given the sheer volume of AI content, how would a community-driven system work? Imagine we enter a phase in which the canon of, say, LOTR is contested and the average fan can’t discern real from fake. How do a community of IP stewards deal with that?
As mentioned, Bitcoin provides one possible template: If a fan wished to discern what was official, they could open a block explorer and cross-check the repository, just as users can probe the entire Bitcoin blockchain, locate transaction IDs, etc. Thus, a community could be tasked with enforcing established consensus rules determining what constitutes approved canon.
A community-led IP management model featuring built-in arbitration and on-chain voting could enforce rules without involving a central authority. In this model, contributors would be incentivized to vet work and decide whether it meets the canonicity threshold. Connecting community management to legal IP enforcement, in other words, while entailing a “social rejection” of non-canon activity.
In short, if the community owns the decision-making process, non-canon IP activity isn’t a threat: It’s either absorbed to be exploited legally or rejected, thereby creating a clear process to absorb quality content.
Beyond Canon
Of course, this just deals with official canon. Arguably, the ability to produce high-quality, copyright-breaking clips detracts from or cheapens an IP, even if viewers acknowledge the new works aren’t “official.”
Beyond the question of official canon lies a thornier issue: outright commercial exploitation. While communities may agree on what constitutes official lore, there’s nothing stopping individuals from wielding AI to generate output featuring famous characters that they later monetize.
When high-quality AI content can be produced cheaply and at scale, the line between fan expression and outright infringement blurs. The challenge isn’t just protecting canon; it’s preventing people from profiteering off supposedly protected IP. But what recourse do IP owners have? Are they relegated to being impotent spectators as an AI-powered imposter mass-produces an endless stream of simulacra, the very existence of which prevents their work from gaining traction?
There are no easy answers. AI is no longer feeding the creative process—it’s attempting a root-and-branch takeover. If we want to maintain some semblance of control and stave off content chaos, we must look to leverage the wisdom of the crowd—humans, not AI agents—and decide our own destiny.
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