Senators tell ByteDance to ‘immediately shut down’ Seidens AI video app

Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Peter Welch are calling for a halt to the new version of ByteDance’s artificial intelligence app Seidens, which creates videos of real people and licensed characters, raising copyright and intellectual property concerns.

Seidance 2.0 “is the most egregious example of copyright infringement by a ByteDance product to date, and you should immediately shut down Seidance and adopt meaningful safeguards to prevent further infringing outputs,” Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Welch, D-Vt., wrote in a letter to ByteDance CEO Liang Rubo.

His letter is a sign of growing concern on Capitol Hill about how AI companies are developing and using their models and whether there are proper protections for those who produce the material the models train.

“Responsible global companies follow the law and respect important economic rights, including intellectual property and individual comparison protections,” wrote Blackburn and Welch. He cited examples of Seidens 2.0 creations made since the platform went live on February 12, including actors Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and Netflix Show “Stranger Things”.

A ByteDance spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC, “ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard concerns regarding SeaDance 2.0. We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent unauthorized use of intellectual property and similarity by users.”

Lawmakers aren’t the only ones who care. Hollywood groups including the Motion Picture Association sent a cease and desist letter to ByteDance. Information reports that ByteDance has paused its global launch of Seadance 2.0.

Until now, Congress has taken a largely hands-off approach to regulating AI. Lawmakers say they don’t want to create guardrails that limit U.S. companies’ ability to innovate and stay ahead of foreign competitors. Several lawmakers have said that because the industry is moving so fast, the legislation they were considering a few years ago is already outdated and inadequate to cover advances like agentic AI.

Yet senators including Blackburn and Welch have introduced bills aimed at AI. In August, the duo unveiled a bill to help artists protect their copyrighted works from being used to train AI.