Superman, Batman and Game of Thrones bosses Warner Bros Discovery joined Disney and Paramount today in putting the copyright infringement gears to TikTok owners ByteDance over AI generated videos of Darth Vader, the Marvel universe, and Tom Cruise.
To that, WBD’s legal chief Wayne M. Smith made it very personal with ByteDance Global General Counsel John Rogovin in a cease and desist letter sent Tuesday.
“Given your history with Warner Bros., you understand the importance and value of Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrighted works, including the famous copyrighted characters like Superman and Batman that you spent much of your career protecting,” Smith said to the man who held his job up until resigning in 2022 soon after David Zaslav merged WB and Discovery. “These characters are the lifeblood of the company.”
If Rogovin wasn’t somehow not getting the shiv Smith was sticking in, the WBD exec gave the old WB exec a deeper cut: “ByteDance is now engaged in blatant infringement of the very same properties you spent many years protecting – iconic properties that Warner Bros. Discovery, and its many talented artists and filmmakers, have labored to create over the past decades.”
Read Warner Bros Discovery’s Cease & Desist letter to ByteDance Over Seedance AI videos here
Dangling the threat of possible legal action to come, WBD bluntly accused the Chinese technology giant of “infringing Warner Bros. Discovery’s copyrights in plain sight, in an apparent attempt to promote and establish consumer demand for Seedance.”
Agencies like CAA, the MPA, and guilds like SAG-AFTRA, who are currently in contract talks with the AMPTP, have Avengers Assembled with the studios over the explosion of AI videos that pit one iconic character from rival owners against another like a multiverse version of UFC meets real world gambling app Kalshi. In response, ByteDance Monday promised they are “taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorised use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
Today, as users appeared to continue to generate new battles or alternative scenes from the likes of The Matrix and Game of Thrones franchises, WBD said sometimes sorry isn’t enough.
“ByteDance appears to be taking initial steps to block certain text prompts regarding a few Warner Bros. Discovery properties,” Smith stated in his letter. “While this is a promising indication that we may resolve this dispute business to business, it nonetheless begs the question why guardrails that can so quickly and easily be implemented were not present upon Seedance’s release. In any event, in order to stem the tide of infringement that ByteDance has created, comprehensive efforts must be taken immediately.”
“Accordingly, Warner Bros. Discovery demands that ByteDance immediately stop infringing its copyrighted works.”
AKA – ByteDance: copyright Kryptonite is in your hands now.
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