ByteDance and Motion Picture Association Reach IP Protection Pact for AI Tools
ByteDance, owner of TikTok, announced a new agreement with the Motion Picture Association (MPA) to strengthen intellectual property protections in its AI video and image generation tools. The deal follows an MPA cease-and-desist letter in February over AI-generated videos featuring realistic depictions of actors like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. The memorandum covers models such as Seedance and Seedream offered across TikTok, CapCut, and Dreamina.
ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, has announced a new agreement with the Motion Picture Association (MPA) aimed at embedding stronger safeguards against intellectual property (IP) infringement in its artificial intelligence offerings. The pact is designed to ensure that AI options available from ByteDance include more robust guardrails to protect against unauthorized use of copyrighted material.
The development follows a February action in which the MPA formally called on ByteDance to implement additional restrictions on its Seedance AI video generation tool. That request came after videos produced with the app featured AI-generated versions of actors in realistic-looking scenes. One widely circulated creation depicted actors Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting on a rooftop.
The MPA's cease-and-desist letter sought to pressure ByteDance into adopting stronger protections to prevent the unauthorized use of actors and other studio-owned IP. That initial step laid the groundwork for the new agreement, which aims to prevent users from leveraging AI models within TikTok to generate video clips featuring IP protected by the film and television industry — at least in theory.
According to ByteDance's official statement: “The Motion Picture Association and ByteDance today announced they have reached a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) reflecting a shared framework to maintain strong guardrails on generative AI video and image models like Seedance and Seedream — offered by TikTok, the TikTok USDS Joint Venture, CapCut and Dreamina, among others — with the goal of protecting intellectual property.”
ByteDance characterized the agreement as representing significant cooperation between the two organizations. The company further noted that the latest versions of its Seedance AI generation models now include advanced IP protections.
The agreement marks a modest step toward safeguarding IP in AI-generated content, although many AI tools continue to allow users to create false and misleading depictions of recognizable individuals and characters. A key challenge in the AI era will be policing this type of misuse. Through agreements such as this one, related parties can establish more direct lines of communication to address these issues.