The Motion Picture Association has struck its first agreement with an artificial intelligence company, reaching a deal with ByteDance over AI tools that drew legal threats from every major Hollywood studio in February. According to reports from The Los Angeles Times, the MPA and Chinese company signed an agreement on Monday to strengthen copyright safeguards on ByteDance's AI video and image-generation models. The partnership represents a truce rather than a licensing deal, meaning studios receive no payments for their catalogues under the agreement. MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin stated that the agreement illustrates their belief that copyright is a cornerstone of the film and television industry, reinforcing their commitment to protect creative content.
The agreement follows a cease-and-desist letter that the MPA sent to ByteDance in February over these AI tools. As reported by The Los Angeles Times, MPA's global general counsel Karyn Temple wrote in a February 20 letter to ByteDance's global general counsel John Rogovin that "ByteDance is engaged in pervasive and widespread infringement of our members' valuable intellectual property that it must stop immediately." The MPA's challenge specifically addressed concerns that Seedance could generate content featuring copyrighted film and television characters without permission, prompting the current partnership agreement. The MPA had accused the company at the time of "disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs" on a massive scale. The legal action was triggered when Seedance 2.0 generated unauthorized videos featuring characters like "SpongeBob SquarePants" and scenes from "Stranger Things" without proper authorization, and later saw creators produce riffs on actors including Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise.
ByteDance has addressed these concerns by stating that newer versions of the models include stronger intellectual-property protections. According to The Los Angeles Times, the enhanced protections were reflected in the company's release of Seedream 5.0 Pro and Seedance 2.5 last month, which specifically addressed the MPA's concerns about unauthorized use of copyrighted material in AI-generated content. The generators are available across the Chinese TikTok owner's collection of apps, including TikTok, the U.S. variant of TikTok, CapCut and Dreamina. ByteDance's general counsel John Rogovin stated that the company respects intellectual property rights and believes responsible innovation in AI goes hand in hand with meaningful protections for rightsholders, appreciating the productive engagement with the MPA as they continue to strengthen safeguards across their generative AI services.
Both organizations have committed to continuing collaboration on safeguards for copyrighted content as AI technology evolves. As reported by The Los Angeles Times, MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin stated that the agreement illustrates their belief that copyright is a cornerstone of the film and television industry, reinforcing their commitment to protect creative content. "For the past several months, we have had constructive engagement with ByteDance to implement meaningful guardrails on Seedance and Seedream, and this MOU reflects our shared determination to continue our work together to further fortify those guardrails," Rivkin said in a statement. The MOU reflects their shared determination to continue working together to further fortify guardrails on Seedance and Seedream as the technology evolves across various products and platforms. The deal positions ByteDance as a template for the MPA's negotiations with other AI developers in the industry, with the agreement establishing an important framework for continued collaboration as the technology evolves.
