Hollywood and TikTok parent company ByteDance have reached an agreement aimed at strengthening copyright protections across the company’s generative AI products, following months of tension over the use of film and television intellectual property.
The Motion Picture Association and ByteDance announced Monday that they have signed a memorandum of understanding establishing a framework for new safeguards around AI-generated images and videos. The agreement covers ByteDance’s Seedance and Seedream models, which are used across TikTok, the TikTok USDS joint venture, CapCut and Dreamina.
Neither company disclosed the specific rules or technical measures included in the agreement. Instead, the MOU establishes an ongoing framework for ByteDance and the MPA to work together on intellectual property protections as its AI systems continue to develop. The lack of publicly detailed guardrails leaves open questions about exactly which copyrighted characters, scenes, likenesses, or other forms of protected material will be restricted. The MPA said the two sides have spent several months working on stronger protections for Seedance and Seedream, while ByteDance said newer versions of the tools already reflect improvements in its approach to intellectual property.
The agreement follows a dispute that began in February, when the MPA sent ByteDance a cease-and-desist letter over Seedance 2.0 and Seedream 5.0 Lite. Hollywood studios and entertainment groups had raised concerns about the AI systems' ability to generate material resembling well-known films, television shows, characters, and performers.
The controversy intensified after AI-generated videos featuring recognizable Hollywood stars and fictional properties spread online, highlighting how easily increasingly sophisticated video-generation tools could reproduce elements of existing entertainment without traditional production or licensing processes.
One of the most widely circulated examples was an AI-generated video depicting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in a fight. The clip quickly went viral and became a prominent example in the industry's criticism of Seedance. The MPA warned at the time about infringing activity and argued that ByteDance needed stronger safeguards to prevent its technology from being used to generate unauthorized content based on protected intellectual property.
The MPA's concerns were not limited to individual celebrity likenesses. Hollywood has also been increasingly focused on whether AI systems can reproduce or draw upon copyrighted film and television properties without authorization.
According to a report by The Los Angeles Times, the February dispute included allegations involving unauthorized material associated with properties such as SpongeBob SquarePants and Stranger Things. ByteDance subsequently said it would strengthen safeguards designed to prevent unauthorized uses of intellectual property and likenesses.
Since the dispute began, ByteDance has released newer versions of its AI tools. Seedream 5.0 Pro and Seedance 2.5 are described by the companies as incorporating improved intellectual property protections. Those products are available across ByteDance's broader collection of platforms, bringing the copyright issue beyond TikTok itself and into other services where users can create or edit AI-generated visual content.
MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said the agreement reflects the organization's view that copyright protections are fundamental to the film and television business. He described the discussions with ByteDance as constructive and said the new framework is intended to further strengthen the safeguards surrounding Seedance and Seedream.
ByteDance General Counsel John Rogovin similarly said the company believes AI development should be accompanied by protections for intellectual property rights and described the MOU as a basis for continued cooperation with the MPA and its members.
The agreement does not settle the larger copyright questions surrounding generative AI, including disputes over how AI models are trained and when generated material crosses the line into infringement. Instead, it creates a direct channel between one of Hollywood's leading trade groups and the company behind TikTok to address those concerns as the technology evolves.
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