Jonathan Rae Nurfoto | getty images
Senators Marsha Blackburn and Peter Welch are seeking to block a new version of ByteDance’s artificial intelligence app, SeeDance, which creates videos of real people and licensed characters, raising copyright and intellectual property concerns.
Seedance 2.0 is “the most flagrant example of copyright infringement from a ByteDance product to date, and you should immediately shut down Seedance and implement meaningful safeguards to prevent further infringing output,” said Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Welch, D-VT. Wrote in a letter to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo Which was first obtained by CNBC.
Their letter is indicative of growing concerns on Capitol Hill about how AI companies are developing and using their models and whether proper protections exist for those who prepare the materials on which the models are trained.
“Responsible global companies follow the law and respect core economic rights, including intellectual property and individual equality protections,” Blackburn and Welch wrote. He gave the example of Seadance 2.0 creations created after the platform went live on February 12, which included actors Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and. Netflix The show “Stranger Things.”
A ByteDance spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC that “ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns about SeeDance 2.0. We are taking steps to strengthen existing security measures as we work to prevent unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.”
Lawmakers aren’t the only ones concerned. Hollywood groups including the Motion Picture Association sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance. The information said that ByteDance has stopped Global launch of Sedans 2.0.
So far, Congress has taken a largely lukewarm approach to regulating AI. Lawmakers say they don’t want to create guardrails that limit the ability of American companies to innovate and stay ahead of foreign competitors. Several lawmakers said that because the industry is moving so fast, legislation they were considering a few years ago would already be outdated and inadequate to cover advances like agentic AI.
Yet senators including Blackburn and Welch have introduced bills targeted at AI. In August, the pair unveiled a bill Helping artists protect their copyrighted works from being used to train AI.