Netflix and Warner Bros. escalate legal fight against ByteDance's Seedance

Netflix sent a cease-and-desist letter calling ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 a "high-speed piracy engine," citing AI videos mimicking characters from Stranger Things, Bridgerton, and Squid Game. Warner Bros. followed with its own letter accusing ByteDance of deliberately training Seedance on Superman, Batman, Game of Thrones, and Harry Potter characters. Warner argues the protections ByteDance belatedly announced should have been built in from the start. Netflix demanded ByteDance remove all infringing content and strip its IP from training datasets. Disney and Paramount had already sent similar letters.

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