Hollywood’s top copyright cops and TikTok’s parent company have called a truce in their war over artificial intelligence.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and ByteDance announced a surprise deal Monday to slap tough safety guardrails on the Chinese tech giant’s powerful AI video and image generators, including Seedance and Seedream.
The newly inked agreement guarantees that ByteDance’s newest AI tech will respect Hollywood’s intellectual property rights, preventing users from prompting AI to cook up bootleg blockbusters or knock-off movie stars.
“Copyright is a cornerstone of the film and television industry,” MPA Chief Charles Rivkin said in a statement Monday.
He added that both parties had discussions for several months “to implement meaningful guardrails on Seedance and Seedream,” which are offered by TikTok, the TikTok USDS Joint Venture, CapCut and Dreamina.
ByteDance General Counsel John Rogovin added that the Chinese company “respects the intellectual property rights that underpin creative industries around the world.”
“We believe responsible innovation in AI goes hand in hand with meaningful protections for rightsholders,” Rogovin said.
The peace treaty comes after the MPA fired off a fierce cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance back in February of this year.
The studios raised concerns that the rogue AI tools were hijacking iconic characters and celebrity faces without asking for permission after videos generated by Seedance 2.0 went viral in China including one of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in a fight.
Disney had accused ByteDance of pre-packaging Seedance with a pirated library of copyrighted characters from franchises including Star Wars and Marvel, portraying them as if they were public-domain clip art.
The letter alleged that Seedance was reproducing, distributing and creating derivative works featuring Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and other characters.
Following the strong pushback from the studios, ByteDance had said that it will take steps to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property on its AI video generator Seedance 2.0
“We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users,” ByteDance had said in a Feb. statement.