If you\u2019ve been waiting anxiously to try out ByteDance\u2019s new video model Seedance 2.0, but you don\u2019t have the necessary prerequisites\u2014a phone number with the +86 country code and an account on a Chinese ByteDance platform\u2014it looks like you\u2019ll just have to keep waiting.<\/p>\n
According to two anonymous leakers who spoke to the Information<\/a>, the global release of Seedance 2.0 is on hold amid legal action from movie studios and streaming services.<\/p>\n When it was initially released, Seedance 2.0 appeared to have few if any protections in place to prevent users from generating videos appearing to star celebrities, copyrighted characters, and celebrities as copyrighted characters.<\/p>\n As I noted last month<\/a>, this model is just the latest of many to trigger copyright disputes that only seem to help them make a splash\u2014this time most prominently from Disney, which has a content partnership with ByteDance competitor OpenAI<\/a>.<\/p>\n Every new generative model that goes viral seems to have a particularly eyebrow-raising use case, such as the Ghibli memes<\/a> that followed the release of OpenAI\u2019s GPT-4o. In the case of Seedance 2.0, that use case has largely been John Wick-style action scenes<\/a> that hold together with C-minus physics and continuity (instead of the F-minus physics and continuity we\u2019ve come to expect<\/a>).<\/p>\n In one famous instance, an X user posted a Seedance 2.0 video that appeared to show a knock-down-drag out between Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. Another clip with Cruise and Pitt<\/a> turned the fight into a Jeffrey Epstein reference, and was notable for drawing attention to the model\u2019s shaky grasp on celebrity voice mimicry.<\/p>\n This was a 2 line prompt in seedance 2. If the hollywood is cooked guys are right maybe the hollywood is cooked guys are cooked too idk. pic.twitter.com\/dNTyLUIwAV<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Ruairi Robinson (@RuairiRobinson) February 11, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Deadpool writer Rhett Reese said, according to the New York Times<\/a>, \u201cFor all of us who work in the industry and devoted our careers and lives to it, I just think it\u2019s nothing short of terrifying,\u201d adding, \u201cI could just see it costing jobs all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n