Hollywood Film Industry Signs First-Ever Copyright Protection Agreement with AI Company

Hollywood has reached its first copyright agreement with an AI company. The Motion Picture Association (MPA) announced on the 17th (local time) that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with AI firm ByteDance to implement safeguards protecting film studio copyrights. This marks the first time a film industry body has signed such an agreement with an AI company, finding common ground approximately six months after the conflict surrounding the video generation model 'Xindance'.

Xindance, unveiled by ByteDance in February, enables the creation of video clips resembling movie scenes featuring real Hollywood actors using simple text prompts. Irish director Ruaridh Robinson created a video featuring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting using just two lines of commands. The Hollywood film industry released a statement of protest, arguing that such generation models had replicated major characters and visual effects from Disney's 'Star Wars' and 'Marvel' franchises, as well as the animated character 'SpongeBob,' without authorization.

Both sides explained that they had made progress with the latest models. Intellectual property protection features have been applied to the video model 'Xindance 2.5' and the image model 'Xdream 5.0 Pro'.

MPA Chairman Charles Rivkin stated, "The agreement signed today demonstrates our belief that copyright is the cornerstone of the film and television industry and reaffirms our commitment to protecting creative content." He added, "Over the past few months, through constructive discussions with ByteDance, we have established tangible safeguards for Xindance and Xdream, and this MOU serves to further solidify those measures."