Seedance 2.0 studio cease-and-desists
Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Warner Bros. and Sony sent cease-and-desist letters over Seedance 2.0; the MPA called it 'systemic infringement'.
Largest legal confrontation over a Chinese video model. Studios cited viral clips with Marvel, Star Wars and anime characters, and Japan opened an inquiry. ByteDance pledged stronger safeguards on 2026-02-16, delayed its API launch and later relaunched with real-face blocking, IP filters and C2PA watermarks (US access 2026-04-07 per a secondary report).
- Date
- Monday, 16 February 2026
- Lab
- ByteDance
- Kind
- product
- Access
- closed API
Legal/licensing milestone, not a model release. Individual studio letters were dated 2026-02-13 to 2026-02-16 per press; the MPA letter date comes from The Decoder.
Sources
This record was checked against its sources on 6 October 2026. How we check