EXCLUSIVE: ByteDance‘s new AI video generator Seedance 2.5 is successfully blocking efforts to steal Hollywood intellectual property after Seedance 2.0 prompted outrage among U.S. studios, research has revealed.
The Chinese owner of TikTok appears to have made good on its promise to improve safeguards after Seedance 2.0 produced a flurry of videos that regurgitated copyrighted material, including the wildly viral clip of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting.
Seedance 2.5 launched in late July, much to the glee of AI creators, who were impressed by the capability of Seedance 2.0. VN.ai, a tech startup that stress tests generative artificial intelligence tools for copyright infringement, has been putting Seedance 2.5 through its paces, and the company has shared its findings with Deadline.
VN.ai concluded that Seedance 2.5 blocks around 80% of prompts involving copyrighted material, which researchers said was “far more” consistent than previous ByteDance models, including Seedance 2.0 and image generator Seedream 5. VN.ai found that 100% of attempts to create videos from copyrighted images were unsuccessful on Seedance 2.5.
VN.ai said Seedance 2.5 did not block prompts. Instead, the model moderated the rendered video and refused to serve it to researchers testing the gen-AI tool. “Protection here is a byproduct of the model being good at drawing something and then recognizing it,” VN.ai said.
This suggests that Seedance 2.5 has been trained on copyrighted material, which could still be a problem for rights holders. And the model was not perfect. VN.ai was able to use Seedance 2.5 to produce a faithful video of Shark Tale‘s Oscar without using the character’s name or the title of the DreamWorks movie.
A ByteDance spokesperson said: “ByteDance launches models with AI transparency measures and guardrails designed to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property, which we continually work to strengthen in collaboration with creative communities as AI technologies evolve.”
It follows Seedance 2.0 provoking a full-throated backlash in Hollywood. The likes of Disney and Netflix sent ByteDance cease-and-desist letters after titles including Stranger Things and The Avengers were being ripped off. At the time, ByteDance said it had “heard the concerns.”
Deadline reported last week that MiniMax H3, another Chinese AI model, was being used to create remixed videos of The Office, Friends, and Star Wars. The company did not respond to a request for comment. In the same story, we reported that VN.ai was able to generate bootleg pictures of Elsa, Shrek, and Buzz Lightyear through ByteDance image creator Seedream 5.0.
VN.ai did this through a third-party API, meaning the safeguards may not have been as robust as on ByteDance’s own service. VN.ai also found that prompts for high-profile characters were often denied, but that by tweaking requests — such as asking for exact pixel sizes — Seedream 5.0 did then produce a recognizable rendering of Buzz Lightyear.
