After Disney and Paramount, Netflix sends legal notice to Bytedance: Read full cease-and-desist letter

Netflix has become the latest Hollywood heavyweight to take legal action against ByteDance. After Disney and Paramount sent a cease-and-desist letter to TikTok’s parent company over its controversial AI video generation tool, Seedance 2.0, the streaming giant fired off the letter describing AI model as “a high-speed piracy engine” capable of replicating copyrighted content.

Seedance 2.0 is making rounds on the internet after a user created a viral video featuring people resembling Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop. While some viewers were impressed by the technology's capabilities, others raised alarm bells about its implications for creative industries.

In its letter to ByteDance, the streaming platform said Seedance 2.0 had generated AI videos mimicking characters from some of Netflix's biggest hit shows, including "Stranger Things," "Bridgerton," and "Squid Game," as well as the popular film "KPop Demon Hunters."

Read Netflix’s full letter to TikTok-parent Bytedance:

Re: CEASE AND DESIST — Willful Infringement of Netflix's Intellectual Property by Seedance 2.0

Dear Mr. Rogovin,I am in-house counsel for Netflix, a global entertainment service that owns and distributes much-loved movies and TV series. We have learned that ByteDance's recently launched audio-video generative AI model, Seedance 2.0 ("Seedance"), is engaging in the pervasive and willful unauthorized reproduction of Netflix's valuable intellectual property.The Infringement: Evidence of High-Fidelity RegurgitationSeedance acts as a high-speed piracy engine, generating mass quantities of unauthorized derivative works utilizing Netflix's iconic characters, worlds, and scripted narratives.Current forensic evidence indicates that Seedance is being used to generate unauthorized derivative works including, but not limited to:● Bridgerton: Unauthorized depictions of Season 4 content, specifically featuring characters in a masquerade ball setting. These outputs mirror specific, narratively important costumes like Sophie Baek's "Lady in Silver" gown. ByteDance has even promoted this content using #Bridgerton tags via its own official social media channels, such as @BytePlusGlobal.● Stranger Things: High-fidelity reboots of the series finale, which feature detailed reproductions of the iconic cast as well as the monsters from the series, including Demogorgons and the Mindflayer.● Squid Game: Seedance has generated recreations of the "Red Light, Green Light" sets and the iconic Young-hee doll. These include unauthorized crossovers, such as inserting real-world figures like Elon Musk into the Squid Game environment.● KPop Demon Hunters: Seedance has reproduced the specific visual style and character designs from our animated musical feature, including the lead character Rumi.Netflix has never authorized ByteDance to use our content to generate these images or videos. ByteDance's activities are willful, and constitute direct and secondary copyright infringement. The use of copyrighted works to create a competing commercial product, especially one that regurgitates the original, is not protected by fair use.Immediate DemandsTo avoid immediate litigation, Netflix demands that ByteDance:1. Cease Generative Output: Immediately implement technological guardrails to prevent Seedance from generating any content that resembles Netflix's protected characters, titles, or settings.2. Remove Infringing Content: Remove all unlawfully obtained Netflix-owned content from training datasets, and also scrub all existing Seedance-generated videos featuring Netflix IP from all ByteDance-controlled platforms.3. Identify All Infringements: Provide an accounting of all instances where Seedance has generated content based on prompts related to Netflix's IP.4. Revoke Third-Party Access: Revoke access for any commercial partners or API users currently utilizing Seedance to generate unauthorized Netflix derivative works.Netflix will not stand by and watch ByteDance treat our valued IP as free, public domain clip art.We await your response within three (3) business days. All rights and remedies are reserved.Regards,Mindy LeMoineDirector, Litigation

ByteDance says it ‘heard concerns’

A ByteDance spokesperson responded to the letter, as per Business Insider. It said the company “respects intellectual property rights” and has “heard the concerns regarding 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,” the ByteDance spokesperson was quoted as saying.