Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Peter Welch demanded Tuesday that China-based TikTok parent ByteDance “immediately shut down” an artificial intelligence app that can use images of real people due to what they described as “glaring” copyright issues — weeks after TikTok officially set up a joint venture to let it keep operating in the US.
The Seedance app produced several alarming videos “within the first 24 hours” after an updated version went live on Feb. 12, including “a brawl between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt that never really happened,” Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Welch (D-Vt.) wrote in a letter addressed to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo.
Other examples that raised alarms included an AI-generated “rewritten” version of the ending of Netflix’s hit series “Stranger Things,” as well as a battle between Marvel supervillain Thanos and DC Comics superhero Superman on the surface of Mars.
“This technology is the most glaring example of copyright infringement from a ByteDance product to date, and you must immediately shut down Seedance and implement meaningful safeguards to prevent further infringing outputs,” the senators wrote.
Copyright abuse by major tech firms has become a key point of contention on Capitol Hill, with critics alleging that creative work is being ripped off without proper credit or compensation.
The senators described Seedance’s alleged violations as “part of a larger trend of artificial intelligence companies stealing protected work at the expense of the creative community.”
The missive came after TikTok in January finalized a White House-brokered deal under which a new US entity runs the app in the States. The setup came in the wake of concerns over the video-sharing app’s algorithm and the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to access user data.
Seedance was built by ByteDance and originally restricted to China, with plans for a broader rollout to come, though they recently hit a legal hurdle in the US.
“If ByteDance wishes to build sustainable economic ties with democratic, free market economies, it must immediately shut down Seedance 2.0 to cease the mass infringement and related harms it has perpetrated, and excise unlicensed intellectual property from its data holdings,” the lawmakers said.
A ByteDance representative said the company “respects intellectual property rights and we have 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 representative said in a statement.
ByteDance has paused the planned global rollout of Seedance after Hollywood giants Disney and Paramount sent cease-and-desist letters to the company.
Disney accused ByteDance of performing a “virtual smash-and-grab” of the company’s intellectual property, including characters from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises.
