Hollywood vs. Seedance: The Wrong Fight
Cease-and-desist letters treat Seedance's emergence as a copyright problem. It is a business model problem—and Hollywood is not ready.
The core challenge in the obvious copyright violations of intellectual property and likenesses in Seedance 2.0 is elegantly summed up in a Bluesky post from comedy writer Heather Ann Campbell:
“All of these people who have access to the latest AI visualisation engines like Seedance they’re being given total control to create anything they can imagine - and they’re turning out fanfiction.”
I would add, the overwhelming majority of “fan fiction” in my feed are fight scenes—not just Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise, but George Costanza delivering a kung-fu kick to Jerry Seinfeld and a giant cat fighting Godzilla.
In response to complaints from the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and a cease-and-desist letter from Disney, Seedance-owner ByteDance assured the market it is “taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
It is obvious why Disney and the MPA felt the need to take action. But in doing so, they missed what makes Seedance dangerous—not the copyright violations, but the economics underneath.
