Disney Fires Cease-and-Desist at ByteDance Over AI Training
Disney accuses ByteDance of using its content to train the Seedance 2.0 video generation model without permission or payment.
Disney is going after ByteDance with a cease-and-desist letter, accusing the Chinese tech giant of ripping off Disney's copyrighted works to train its Seedance 2.0 AI video generation model — without paying a dime.
The Walt Disney Company fired off the letter on Friday, alleging ByteDance's infringement spans content used to build out the model's capabilities. Seedance 2.0 is ByteDance's video generation tool, and Disney clearly isn't thrilled about its intellectual property being fed into the machine.
This is the latest salvo in the escalating war between entertainment giants and AI companies over training data. Content owners are increasingly drawing hard lines around unauthorized use of their work. Disney choosing to target ByteDance directly — rather than just complaining publicly — signals the House of Mouse means business.