Unlike responsive US AI companies, Chinese firms like ByteDance are ignoring copyright concerns with models like SeedDance 2.0. This has forced Hollywood institutions to shift strategy from legal challenges to public pressure campaigns in an attempt to protect their intellectual property.

China employs a dual strategy for AI. Domestically, its Cyberspace Administration rigorously penalizes unlabeled deepfakes to maintain social control. Abroad, its companies like ByteDance face no such constraints, allowing them to use foreign IP freely and creating a significant regulatory arbitrage advantage over Western competitors.

Disney, known for aggressively protecting its IP, is partnering with OpenAI. This pivot acknowledges AI-generated content is inevitable, making proactive licensing a smarter strategy than reactive lawsuits to stay relevant and monetize its vast library of characters in the AI era.

Disney is pursuing a dual strategy: partnering exclusively with OpenAI for AI-generated content while simultaneously taking legal action against Google for copyright infringement. This indicates Disney is not just licensing IP, but actively choosing its AI partner to create a competitive moat and pressure rivals.

Hollywood studios like Disney have lost their leverage over China. With the Chinese box office now dominated by domestic films, cease-and-desist letters against AI tools like ByteDance's C-Dance 2.0 are largely symbolic. Without US government intervention, Chinese firms can effectively treat foreign IP as "free public domain clip art."

Disney is simultaneously suing Google for copyright infringement while signing a $1 billion licensing and equity deal with OpenAI for the same activity. This reveals a strategy where litigation is a tool to force AI labs into lucrative partnerships, rewarding the very infringement they are suing over.

While US AI companies navigate complex licensing deals with IP holders, Chinese firms like ByteDance appear to be using copyrighted material, such as specific actors' voices, without restriction. This lack of legal friction allows them to generate highly specific and realistic content that Western labs are hesitant to produce.

The high quality of ByteDance's C-Dance video model suggests it may be trained on copyrighted material, like David Attenborough's voice, which US labs are legally restricted from using. This freedom from IP constraints could give Chinese firms a significant competitive advantage in media generation.

Companies like OpenAI knowingly use copyrighted material, calculating that the market cap gained from rapid growth will far exceed the eventual legal settlements. This strategy prioritizes building a dominant market position by breaking the law, viewing fines as a cost of doing business.