AI Video, Copyright, and the Turning Point No One Wanted to Talk About

19 February 2026

Paul Francis

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For years, artificial intelligence has been quietly absorbing the creative world.

Illustrators watched as models produced images in their style. Writers saw language models trained on books they never licensed. Voice actors heard digital replicas of their tone and cadence. Photographers discovered fragments of their work embedded in datasets they never consented to join.

Close-up of a person in a red and black spider-themed suit against a dark background, showing a spider emblem on the chest. — Photo by Hector Reyes on Unsplash

The arguments were loud, emotional and often messy. Creators warned that their intellectual property was being harvested without permission. AI companies insisted that training data fell within legal grey areas. Lawsuits were filed. Statements were issued. Panels were held.

But systemic change moved slowly.

Then Spider-Man appeared.

Not in a cinema release or on a Disney+ platform, but inside a viral AI-generated video created using ByteDance’s Seedance 2.0. Within days of its release, social feeds were filled with highly realistic clips showing Marvel and Star Wars characters in scenarios that looked convincingly cinematic. Lightsabers clashed. Superheroes fought across recognisable cityscapes.

And this time, the response was immediate.

Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter accusing ByteDance of effectively conducting a “virtual smash-and-grab” of its intellectual property. Other studios followed. Industry bodies demanded the platform halt what they described as infringing activity. Even the Japanese government opened an investigation after AI-generated anime characters began circulating online.

ByteDance quickly pledged to strengthen safeguards.

The speed of that reaction stands in sharp contrast to the drawn-out battles fought by independent creatives over the last several years. And that contrast raises a difficult but necessary question: why does meaningful pressure seem to materialise only when billion-dollar franchises are involved?

The Uneven Battlefield of Copyright and AI

The legal tension around generative AI has always centred on training data. Most AI systems are built on enormous datasets scraped from publicly available material. Whether that constitutes fair use or copyright infringement remains one of the most contested questions in modern technology law.

When the alleged victims were individual artists or mid-tier studios, the debate felt theoretical. There were court filings and opinion pieces, but not immediate operational shifts from the tech giants.

Now the optics are different.

Seedance is not accused of vaguely echoing an artistic style. It is accused of generating recognisable characters owned by one of the most powerful entertainment companies in the world. Spider-Man is not an aesthetic. He is a legally fortified intellectual property asset supported by decades of licensing agreements, contractual protections and global brand enforcement.

That changes the power dynamic instantly.

Where independent creators struggled to compel transparency around training datasets, Disney commands it. Where freelance illustrators waited months for platform responses, multinational studios can demand immediate action.

The issue itself has not changed. The scale of the stakeholder has.

What This Means for AI Video

AI video is still in its infancy compared to image generation, but the implications of this dispute could accelerate its regulation dramatically.

If platforms are found to be generating content too closely resembling copyrighted franchises, expect tighter content controls. Prompt filtering will become more aggressive. Character names will be blocked. Visual similarity detection tools may be deployed to prevent outputs that mirror protected designs.

In short, the open playground phase of AI video may end sooner than expected.

There is also another path emerging: licensing.

Disney’s existing billion-dollar partnership with OpenAI signals a model where AI tools are not eliminated but contained within approved ecosystems. Rather than preventing AI from generating Marvel characters altogether, studios may instead seek to monetise that capability under strict agreements.

That would create a bifurcated future for AI video. Corporate-approved generative systems operating inside licensing frameworks on one side, and heavily restricted public tools on the other.

Independent creators could once again find themselves navigating a more tightly controlled environment shaped by corporate negotiation rather than broad creative consensus.

The Transparency Question

One of the most significant unknowns in this entire situation is training data.

ByteDance has not disclosed what Seedance was trained on. That silence is not unusual in the industry. Most generative AI companies treat training datasets as proprietary assets.

But as legal pressure increases, so too does the demand for transparency. If studios begin demanding to know whether their content was scraped, regulators may soon follow.

For years, artists have asked for opt-in systems, compensation structures and dataset audits. If this moment forces platforms to adopt more transparent practices, it may indirectly validate those earlier demands.

It would be a bitter irony if the turning point for creator protection comes only once global media conglomerates feel threatened.

A Defining Moment for AI and Creativity

There is something symbolic about this dispute.

AI innovation has been framed as disruptive, democratising and unstoppable. Copyright law, by contrast, is territorial, slow-moving and rooted in decades-old legal frameworks. For a time, it appeared that generative AI might simply outpace enforcement.

But intellectual property remains one of the strongest legal shields in modern commerce. When AI tools move from stylistic imitation to recognisable franchise replication, the shield activates quickly.

This is not necessarily an anti-AI moment. It may instead be a recalibration.

The creative economy depends on ownership, licensing and consent. AI systems that ignore those principles are unlikely to survive prolonged legal scrutiny. The question is whether reform will apply evenly across the creative landscape or remain reactive to whoever has the loudest legal voice.

If the Seedance dispute leads to clearer boundaries, transparent datasets and fairer licensing models for all creators, it could mark a maturation phase for AI video.

If it simply results in selective enforcement that protects corporate assets while leaving independent creators in grey areas, the imbalance will persist.

For now, one thing is certain.

AI video has crossed from experimental novelty into serious legal territory.

And it took a superhero to force the conversation into the open.

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Back to normal, back to the grindstone…

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In a matter of days, most of the restrictions we’ve been living under will be lifted. One of these is the recommendation to work from home; the government will leave it up to employers to decide whether they continue with remote working, a hybrid arrangement, or if they insist that the entire workforce returns to the office.

Of course, there are many industries whose employees have never changed their working arrangements, because they cover key services or they’re front-facing/work directly with the public. Office workers and employees in other sectors, however, have been able to work from home during the pandemic, though this may now change.

So, are we all raring to return to the office?

Opinion is still divided. There are those that relish being back in the office, whilst others are counting down the days to returning with a sense of dread. There have even been some who have handed in their notice when asked to return to their employers’ headquarters, such is their desire to continue working from home.

I read about one household, where the husband had been working remotely for the last fifteen months. There wasn’t much space in their home, and he’d been working from a desk in the corner of their lounge. He was in no rush to go back to his employer’s; however, the rest of the family were desperate for things to return to normal. The kids, who were instructed not to make any noise during working hours. The wife, who wanted to use the lounge during the day as a family room, but who was instead relegated to the kitchen. In their situation, the husband/father permanently working from home would be disastrous, even if he couldn’t see it himself. Few people, back in March 2020, would have foreseen the length of time the pandemic would impact our daily lives. Initially, arrangements like this family had to endure may have been tolerable, because they were deemed to be short-term—but living like they do, day in, day out, year upon year…it’s not realistic.

I’ve also seen a number of discussions online about employers who promised a hybrid approach to working when things returned to normal, i.e. a few days at home and a few days in the office, but who have now reneged on such agreements. Other companies have gone as far as to ask their employees what they would like, with regards to their working situation, before deciding that everyone must be office based—despite the fact their employees had overwhelmingly plumped for remote/hybrid working. You would, in their position, think, ‘What was the point of all that?!’

As someone who isn’t as productive when working from home (I have a lovely, separate office, and no kids to keep quiet—I’m just very easily distracted), I’m happy to work from my employers’ offices. I just need scientists to invent teleporters to get rid of my commute, then life would be perfect. This is my personal choice from a privileged position; had my girls still been toddlers that needed to be silenced for eight hours a day, or I was required to be productive, sat on my bed, my laptop on my knees, for the full working day, I’m not sure I’d want to be a homeworker. I truly sympathise with the family mentioned above, and many others across the country who may be at loggerheads over the issue. The question of whether to return to the office, in my opinion, is not just one for the employee, but of their whole family if the decision is likely to impact everyone in the house.

If an employee doesn’t agree with their employer’s decision to return to the office, of course, they are free to vote with their feet and find another position that is happy to accommodate them; that said, the job market is not quite as easy to conquer as it may have been, pre-pandemic.

Whether a key worker or home worker, it’s not really a case of ‘back to the grindstone’. It’s been bloody hard work for most people these last fifteen months…did we ever leave the grindstone to return to it?